HOW TO HANDLE ANGER

Now it’s important to understand that what we’re trying to teach you is how to build intimacy, because you see, falling in love is actually trying to build intimacy with the person that you intend to actually love. And one thing I’ve said over and over and I wanna say again before I get into how to handle anger is: you must understand that two people can have a physical relationship without ever being intimate.

But it is possible for two people to grow into intimacy without getting into sex. Once I’m intimate with you spiritually, socially, mentally, we’re intimate. Even if we never really get into sex, we’re still intimate. But two people can have physical relationship without being intimate.

And what you need to build during courtship is intimacy, because if two people are not intimate spiritually, socially and mentally before marriage, they have no relationship. And by the time they get married they’re gonna have problems because they’re not friends. They don’t understand themselves. The bible says in Hosea 3:3, “Can two walk together except they agree.”

I can only say I’m in love with you if we agree. And if we’re not intimate, we don’t agree. Once we get into physical intimacy, we actually disturb spiritual, social and mental intimacy, because we stop building and we start using ourselves, once we get into physical intimacy before marriage.

Most men find it very easy to build intimacy with you before marriage. Once they’re married, they’re not so good at building intimacy then. They face their work and face other responsibilities. So the best time to build intimacy is during courtship and by the time you marry, you can build on what you already have built.

But if you’re not intimate before marriage it becomes a big problem and what you realize is some people try to court during marriage when they should have courted before marriage. So it’s so important to know that if I’m gonna fall in love with you I must become intimate with you spiritually, socially and mentally.

Communication is the key to intimacy. If we stop talking, we stop being intimate. If we have two people living together and they don’t talk, there’s no relationship. No matter how beautiful or handsome they both are, once there’s no talking, there’s no intimacy. There’s no understanding. There’s no caring and there’s no needs being met.

And remember sex is non-verbal communication. Even in marriage, when there’s no communication, you can’t have a good sexual life, because I need to let you know what I want and you need to let me know what you want for each of us to enjoy sex. So if I start sleeping with you before marriage and there’s no communication and we don’t build communication, when we get married even sex is useless.

I will not still enjoy my sexual life because I still need communication to have a good sexual life. But if both of us are used to talking and not using each other, by the time we get married, love is easy to really experience.

Now one of the reasons why we’re talking about anger is this: no matter how holy you are, no matter how spiritual you are, people still get angry. So if I know how to deal with anger in marriage, then I know how to really fall in love, because no matter how wonderful that man is or no matter how holy that woman is, the bible says get angry but don’t sin.

It ‘s okay to express your anger but express it the right way. Ephesians 4:15, “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all thing which is the head, even Christ.” Getting angry in a healthy way is learning to speak the truth in love. When I get angry with you most of the time is because there’s something you’re doing that I don’t like. And I need to tell you the truth about that thing.

But the bible says even if I’m gonna tell you the things I don’t like, which is the truth in the situation, I must do it in love. So actually, processed anger is learning how to speak the truth in love. Or learning how to tell you like something he’s doing you do not like in the right way.

Getting angry in the right way is what we call processed anger. Now suppressing or inappropriately expressing or repressing anger is destructive. And they’re immature methods of handling anger. Yet many people know no other methods. Now most of us are getting angry in our relationships but we’re doing it in a destructive way.

Most people don’t know how to process their anger. They repress it. They oppress it. Or they express it. And so what we’re gonna learn today is how to ventilate or anger constructively. Now the refusal to deal with the presence of anger constructively can create some major health problems. That is why we must learn that it’s okay to get angry but not sin.

The bible says get angry but don’t in. if I repress my anger or I deal with anger the wrong way, it can lead to major health problems like ulcers, headaches, anxiety, attacks, depression and many other few things. Being aware of your anger responses is not sinful but healthy. When I get angry, it’s ok.

I need to understand that it’s not sinful to be angry. But it’s sinful when I express it the wrong way. Ephesians 4:26, “Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” When we sin in our anger verse 27 says, “We give place to the devil.” According to this Ephesians 4:26 and 27, Paul says we should be aware of our anger. But we should be in control of our temper and not allow it to get out of hands.

It’s ok to feel angry but you must be in control of the anger. There’s nothing wrong with you feeling angry, but you must control that anger. Once the anger is in control that I’m learning how to process, you see, I’m angry but I’ve processed the anger, when I’m

talking about processing the anger I’m talking about being in control. The bible says we are always in control when we are in the spirit. The bible says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace…temperance, self-control. So every time I am in the spirit, I have self-control.

So I do I get into the spirit? I get into the spirit by praying. I get into the spirit by reading my bible and then I get into the spirit by speaking the word of God to myself. If I want to be in control of my emotions, I need to say to myself everyday, “In the name of Jesus, I’m a child of God.

The love of God has been shed abroad in my heart and therefore I’m in control of myself. I’m in control of my emotions. My flesh will not take control over me. As child of God I’m in control. I walk in the Spirit. And so I do not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” You can say 1st Corinthians 13:4, “Love suffers long, because I’m a child of God and because the love of God has been shed abroad in my heart, according to Romans 5:5, I suffer long. I am patient. I am kind. I have self-control. I don’t demand my own way.”

You see, say that to yourself everyday, you gonna see a new person. Remember as a Christian, the bible says in Matthew 11:23 that you need to say to yourself what you believe. You can never start to receive your miracle until you start speak the word of God to yourself, because speaking, confessing is actually possession.

You can never possess what you don’t speak. So I’ve got to learn not to speak the negative things about myself. I must learn to speak the truth about myself, which is the word of God. If I keep saying I can’t stop this anger. I have a nasty anger, that’s what’s gonna happen to me.

If I keep saying I lack self-control. I’m a sinner. That’s what’s gonna happen to me. When I wake up in the morning I say to myself I’m a saint. Christ lives in me. I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. And therefore whatever I do today I prosper. And therefore I’m in control of my life. “I’m not a sinner. I’m a saint. What ever you want say it to yourself everyday. What you say you will be. The bible says, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There’s an experience I had when I was in part one in UI. Every morning, when I wake up, I will say to myself,

“Bimbo, you are a child of God. You are now a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things have passed away. Behold everything has become new. And therefore you do not walk in the flesh. You walk in the Spirit. And therefore listen to who you are right now and listen to what the Lord has done through you and has done in you.” and I will say to myself,

“According to 1st Corinthians 13:4, I suffer long, because I’m now a Christian. I’m now born-again. I am kind. I do not demand my own way. I’m not envious. I’m not puffed up. I’m not rude. I’m not prideful. I don’t behave unseemly. I don’t seek my own. I’m not easily provoked. I think no evil. I bear all things. I believe all things. I hope all things and I endure all things.” And I’ll say that to myself over and over. And this particular day I

wanted to go somewhere outside the campus and I got into a taxi. I was the first person that the taxi man picked. And after that he picked somebody else. And when we got a half way the driver told me that he was gonna drop the other persons first and I thought it was very unfair.

As I was about to open my mouth to say the wrong things, I heard my voice saying to me, “Love suffers long. Love suffers long.” And I just closed my mouth. I mean, I can never forget that experience. The Lord just repeated it to me through my voice. You are love you know and you suffer long.

I closed my mouth and I just allowed him to do what he was gonna do, because getting angry at that time was not gonna be very productive for me. So I felt the anger but I didn’t do anything about it. I actually processed it. So whatever you say to you is what is gonna happen to you.

Now justified anger is approved by God when kept under control and directed towards eradication of sin. Once I do not sin in my anger, I’ve learnt to process my anger. Now healthy anger fires us up to fight for truth rather than allowing us to remain indifferent. So it can be a healthy anger when I express what is hurting me. But I must say it the right way.

Now angry feelings can motivate us to change or correct injustice. That’s why I need to express my anger. You see, every time you feel bad about something, you must accept responsibility for your anger. Now whatever anybody does to you once you don’t get angry there’s no problem.

But once you get angry and you really feel bad about it, then that anger now becomes yours. Don’t ever blame anybody for getting you angry. Anger has to do with you and your response to a situation. Now, I can feel bad for what you have done but once I get angry, I’m responsible for feeling angry.

I can’t say, “You always make me angry.” Nobody can make you angry but you. Once you are angry, it’s your problem. Not the person’s problem. What I always tell people is this: if you don’t do anything about your anger you are gonna be the one that’s gonna fall sick.

You are gonna be the one that is gonna get unhappy. You are gonna be the one everybody is gonna call an angry person. You are gonna be the one that will not smile to everybody. You are gonna be the one that God cannot bless. So is not the person’s problem. It’s your problem.

So once you feel bad about something and it’s really affecting you, you need to express it. But once I don’t feel bad about it, if I’m able to feel it and not feel bad about it, I don’t need to express it. But you see, it’s impossible for you to live life without getting angry sometimes.

Now you can avoid useless and unproductive fighting by following a few simple rules. You see, processed anger is learning how to fight the right way. So if I don’t want to fight the wrong way, I need to learn the rules.Proverbs 19:11, “Good sense makes a man restrain his anger and it is in his glory to overlook a transgression or an offence.” Now the first rule to getting angry the right way is reduce angry feelings.

Now it’s ok to b angry but you can’t get angry all the time. If every minute you get angry, nobody is gonna like you. And if you tell them, “Well, God says, ‘Get angry and sin not.’” People are gonna wonder why you are just an angry person. And everything anybody does, you get angry. So I must learn to reduce my anger.

Psalm 30:5, “For His anger endures but a moment. In his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.” It’s one thing to reduce your anger. James 1 says, “Be slow to getting angry.” Be quick to hear and be slow to wrath. The two things I must understand about anger is, I must be slow to getting angry and when I get angry, it must not lat for too long.

Once I allow my anger to last more than a day, it becomes sin. You get into malice. You get into strife. You get into bitterness and that is quite destructive. And the more I allow my anger to last, the more difficult it is for me to stop the anger. When some somebody is angry, while that person is in a state of hot anger, attempting to resolve the problem is next to impossible.

The intensity of the feelings may be reduced before either of you can see sanely or can talk in the right way. What we’re saying here is, when I get angry, I must understand that is not right time for me to solve any problem. So what should I do when I am angry? When I’m angry what I need to do at that point in time is to leave the scene, because anger is power. Anger is energy.

And when you’re angry, you have so much energy. When you slap somebody, you can wound the person. You can do things that are quite destructive when you’re angry, because there’s so much energy in you. So what you need to do at that time is, don’t try to solve any problem at that time. Try to leave that place.

Look for a place where you can control that energy. You can decide to lock yourself in the room and hit your hand on the bed if you want and scream as much as you want, and tell God everything you have in your mind and scream and shout or you can decide to take a walk. Or jug round.

You’ve got to find what you can do. Or you start to pray restlessly in the Spirit, because you see, as you’re praying in the Spirit, the Holy Ghost now comes in to help you. I think that’s the best way to go about it. So try to use up your energy on something constructive not on destroying somebody else.

And once I see somebody who is angry, I need to leave the scene straight because that person can do anything at that particular second, depending on how angry the person is. That’s not the time to start telling him in a constructive way what he’s doing wrong. He will not hear anything you are saying, because there can’t be any constructive way at that time because the timing is wrong.

If I’m the one angry, I need to take my attention off what the person is doing. I need to face my anger, because remember, I can’t blame anybody for feeling angry. Once I get angry I’m responsible for responding to what you have done in an angry way. So what I need to focus at that time is what I’m feeling and how to handle my feelings and not make it destructive or sinful.

When you get married or if you’re courting, you need to tell your spouse or your intended what he/she should do when you’re angry, how the person can get you out of that anger. When you’re happy, in the good times, tell your spouse what he/she can do to help you when you’re angry.

Now when some people are angry, they want you to give them space. They want you to give about thirty minutes or an hour. Now somebody else will tell you, if I’m angry, no matter how much I shout…you see, when you’re courting, there are two dangerous times, there are two occasion that if you don’t handle very well can lead into sex.

When you’re very happy or when you’re very sad. When somebody is very sad and you are there to appease him/her – maybe you there to hug, “Oh sorry! I understand…” while you are hugging and soothing, before you know what, you can get out of control. Now when somebody is so excited, “Oh I got a testimony! I got a promotion…!”

While you are busy rejoicing and thanking God, the time of thanksgiving can be a time of being ungrateful, because you can mess up that time by just being, “Oh hallelujah!” and before you know what, the body takes over. But you see, the point is you need to ask your intended or your spouse what he/she should do when you’re angry, because he knows the best thing to do and she knows as well.

Now something else you must understand is, nobody is in control of your anger but you. But as a Christian you are always in control. God has given you your will. The bible says in Deuteronomy 21, “I lay before you life and death. You choose…” some said you were not created with the ability to sin but the ability to choose.

Now you must always know, no matter how overwhelming that anger is, you can feel it. But the way you respond is left to you. No devil is in control of the anger. You are. Every time you react in a very extreme way in your anger you have chosen to let the devil use your will.

And if you’re born-again, you have the Holy Ghost in you and remember you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. At that time you can lean on the Lord to help you. You can say, “No! I’m not gonna shout! No! I’m not gonna hit him!” No matter how

much your body wants to hit, you still have to do it. So you are always in control. Never let the devil tell you you have one demonic hold. You see, whatever you believe about yourself is what is gonna happen. Bible says, “All things are possible to him that believes.”

If I start saying, “I’m in control of my anger. I will not respond the wrong way. I will not respond destructively when I’m angry.” When you get angry, you will remember that. Remember, Christianity is called the Great Confession. The problem is not the problem. It’s what you do with your problem.

Whatever you believe and say, you will get. When you gave your life to Christ, what did you do? You came out and you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died and resurrected and you confessed with your mouth that he’s your Lord and Saviour and you automatically became born-again.

Something happened immediately. That’s a law. Every time you believe and you confess with your mouth, you actually receive what you want and the more you say it the more you receive it. But the problem with us is that we believe we don’t say it. And once we believe we don’t say it, it’s useless.

Remember whatever you say is what you get. If I believe with my heart that the Lord is with me and I can control my anger. And also I keep saying, “Well, I have a problem with this anger.” You see, you are not saying what you believe or you are saying what you really believe, because whatever you say is what you get and at the end of the day whatever you believe is what you say.

But if I keep saying the right thing, I will start to believe it. The bible says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.” What I say to myself I start to believe that about me.

Next thing, every time you are angry, always use eye messages. After you’ve calm down and now you want to express your anger in the right way, what you need to do is, go to your spouse, and tell your spouse how you feel about what he’s doing. Not how what he’s doing is affecting you.

You don’t like the way your spouse talks to you. That’s what you wanna tell him. So you say to him, “Every time you talk to me the wrong way, I feel bad. And it makes me really feel unhappy. It strips of my esteem and makes me feel rejected.” You see, you are not attacking him. You are expressing you feelings.

But if you say to him, “I’m just fed up with you. You are quite inconsiderate and this is the last time I’m gonna put up with this pompous action of yours, because if you are knowledgeable, you should know that any human being will feel unhappy. And it’s quite disturbing that you call yourself a Christian, and you can behave in such an unholy way and the you go to church everyday and you get to open your mouth…”

You see you are attacking him. That’s not a constructive way of expressing your anger. But you see, you talk about how he makes you feel. It’s a different thing altogether. Don’t be concerned about he/she changing. Be concerned about he/she understanding your feelings.

You se, if you try to understand my feelings then you would change. But if I’m so concerned about you changing, I might say the wrong things to change you. But all I need to express when I’m angry is how I feel. And if you truly love me, you do something about how I feel because you don’t want me to feel unhappy.

Something else you can do is a lot of complimenting. For example when your spouse annoys you, save the atmosphere by telling him/her how important he/she is to you. And then try to also tell him/her how you try to see things in his own way or see things from his own point of view.

And that you’ll really appreciate it if he tries to see things in your own way or see things from your own point of view. And that all you’re just asking him to do is understand you. In the difference between a man and a woman, one thing that guys must always try to put at the back of their mind is, I f they treat their intended or wives like they treat other guys in their lives, they’re gonna mess up their relationship.

She’s not another guy in your life. She’s a lady. And like he is not another woman in your life. He’s a man. So if I treat a woman the way I treat my male friends, I can’t treat her right, because she’s different from any male. That’s why she’s a woman and not a man. And the reason why God gave her a different name from yours is because she thinks differently.

You see, everything you do to a woman you must do it, trying to understand how a woman reasons. If I don’t learn to study my woman, I don’t learn to study my man, I can never have a good relationship with them.

Next thing, never ever suppress anger. When you suppress anger, what you do is you keep malice. And anger that is suppressed is of no use because I can never know why you are angry. Always put your anger into words. If I’m angry everyday and I don’t express my anger, you can never understand why I’m angry and you keep doing the wrong things.

So I must realize that I must always put my anger into words but the right way. That’s why we said always process your anger. Don’t just suppress it.

Message stops here. An unfinished issue from the previous week was picked up. Pastor Bim asksNow what was the question last week? Can somebody remind us?

Someone responds from the audience:

Someone asked a question, why is it that men can easily relate with another woman they are not going out with. But when it comes to the person they are going out with, they bottle up things. And I remember we mentioned ego. That was where we stopped.