Anger or Love?

And He said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.  Mark 3:4-6

Here’s another instance of when Jesus—our human Lord—felt anger. It was towards the Pharisees who were being so legalistic and blinded. They just couldn’t see or accept Jesus for who He is and what He was doing. Jesus dealt with His anger by grieving and then physically healing the man before Him. That was a positive action.

Anger. One time when I was dealing with anger—mostly over unmet expectations from my children and husband—I looked up all the scripture I could find from my little Bible concordance about anger. It just made me more angry. So I decided that I needed to be more positive and look up verses about love, forgiveness and joy. That did it—I was able to let go of some of my anger and just be kinder to my family. That was thirty years ago. I’m still learning lessons daily on living the way God wants me to live. Now on the Blue Letter Bible site (http://www.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm) I’ve found that there are 274 occurrences of “anger” in the NASB translation. That’s a lot of anger. The word love can be found 348 times—there is a lot more love than anger in the Bible. That is reassuring. Maybe that is because God is love.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8

Training Tip – With your family look up Bible verses dealing with anger and with love, forgiveness or joy. See a few verses below to get you started.

Here are a couple of examples God’s anger:

Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?” Exodus 32:11 

When you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you. Joshua 23:16  

Here’s a few of examples of love:

He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."  Genesis 22:2 

So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:19 

You shall therefore love the LORD your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments. Deuteronomy 11:1  

O love the LORD, all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves the faithful and fully recompenses the proud doer. Psalms 31:23  

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16  

Lord God, we acknowledge that we deserve Your anger—we don’t always do things in ways that are pleasing to You. Please forgive us…. Show us better ways to live that are pleasing to You and help us to share Your love with others everyday—not just during this holiday season.

All scripture quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) unless otherwise noted.

© 2013 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.