Slow to Anger

One of the areas in which I am experiencing transformation is in how I respond to others. This obviously isn't just a work that God's Spirit suddenly began to do in my life in the last couple of weeks -- it's been going on for quite some time in my life. However, in the last two weeks I've experienced a significant touch of the Lord. Before I share a little of what this means for me, I want to provide a little background from Scripture.

You will remember, from last Monday's post, that the process of transformation starts with revelation. This is not just a revelation of my condition (i.e. my sin), but rather a revelation of the Lord Himself. A picture of how this revelation-initiated transformation works is found in Isaiah 6:1-3, which describes the personal encounter that the prophet Isaiah had with the glory of God:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.'"

The next verse explains what resulted from this vision Isaiah had of God's holy presence:

"At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."

The glory of God will always have this effect on our world. In fact, God has promised that he will "shake not only the earth but also the heavens...so that what cannot be shaken may remain (Hebrews 12:26-27). But the impact of this vision was far more than just a physical shaking of Isaiah's surroundings. Isaiah himself was shaken, for in Isaiah 6:5 we read Isaiah's own words:

"'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.'"

This is the nature of revelation. When you see the Lord for who He really is, it cannot but impact your life. For a revelation of the Lord's nature will of necessity entail a revelation of your own. Because Isaiah had caught a glimpse of the holiness of God, he now saw himself in contrast -- a man who was unholy and "ruined." Like Paul, who recognised that he was "wretched" (Romans 7:24), Isaiah too realized the vast gulf between himself and God in terms of righteousness and holiness. This is why Paul said, in Ephesians 4:24, that we are now to "put on the new self, [which is] created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." You cannot step into this God-similitude without first having a revelation of the nature of God's righteousness and holiness.

But God doesn't leave Isaiah in this state of abject self-revelation. Isaiah 6:6-7 tells us:

"Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'"

Hand in hand with Isaiah's revelation of God, and the accompanying self-revelation, came an act of atonement. God didn't just reveal Isaiah's condition; He addressed it through an act of redemption. In the same way, part of the transformation process that we experience as we encounter God, one revelation after another, is that we experience God's forgiveness and restoration.

Isaiah 6:8 finishes the description of Isaiah's transformation process (or at least this specific incident) with these words:

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!'"

Transformation ultimately results in a total reorientation of one's life with God's plan and purpose. I don't believe a person can experience the transforming power of God and remain self-focused. By its very nature, transformation involves a realignment with God's will, hence God's question and Isaiah's response.

I mentioned 2 Corinthians 3:18 in my last post, and it's worthwhile quoting it here again:

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

The Contemporary English Version puts it this way:

"So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord's Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord."

The key to this transformation process, according to 2 Corinthians 3:18, is a revelation of God, which comes about with an "unveiled" or "uncovered" exposure to God's presence -- in other words, coming close to God, close enough that we ourselves "reflect the Lord's glory" (NIV) by "beholding [God's glory] as in a mirror" (NKJV). I've written elsewhere of this "mirror effect" and if you're interested in reading more, you can download the OBC lesson, "Conformed to His Image", from here.

I didn't intend to spend so much time on these preliminary explanations, but having written them, I've decided not to edit them out, because I believe it's important to understand the dynamics of transformation in order to fully appreciate what I'm about to write. I'm now going to share with you that part of the revelation I've had of the Lord -- just one aspect of His glory and His nature -- which has had a dramatic impact on my life in recent weeks. This revelation is not in itself new (I've read this passage before, and I've known this aspect of God's nature before), but it's imprint upon me has been very much new. Like Isaiah, I've experienced the shaking of "the doorposts and thresholds" of my heart and life.

When God revealed His glory (in limited measure) to Moses, He declared His eternal nature in Exodus 34:6-7:

"And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'"

There's a lot that could be explained about this verse, but to suffice it to say at this point that everything in these two verses is the revelation of God that is revealed in the Law of Moses. In this post I want to focus on one facet of God's nature, the attribute that has particularly impacted me in recent days -- God's description as "slow to anger."

Take a look at these other verses:

• Numbers 14:18 - "The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

• Nehemiah 9:17 - "They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them..."

• Psalm 86:15 - "But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness."

• Psalm 103:8 - "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love."

• Psalm 145:8 - "The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love."

• Joel 2:13 - "Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."

• Jonah 4:2 - "He prayed to the Lord, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity."

• Nahum 1:3 - "The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet."

You'll notice that the Bible doesn't say that God doesn't get angry (note Romans 1:18; Psalm 7:11), nor does it equate anger with sin (note Psalm 4:4; Ephesians 4:26). Jesus got angry (see Luke 11:37-54), but his anger, like His Father's, is a righteous anger, provoked by serious and sustained wickedness, arrogance and hypocrisy (Romans 2:5-8) - not a self-centred irritation that flares up due to lack of self control. In fact, self-control is one of the "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22-23) -- in other words, self-control is one of the attributes of the divine nature we are called to participate in (2 Peter 1:4). This is why James 1:19-20 gives this advice:

"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires."

I like the way The Message puts it:

"...Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger."

J B Phillips phrases it this way:

"...let every man be quick to listen but slow to use his tongue, and slow to lose his temper. For man's temper is never the means of achieving God's true goodness."

After stating that we must "put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24), Paul goes on in Ephesians 4:31-32 to give this command:

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

The Lord has been working in my life for many years in this particular area. When you fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others, it's all too easy to come to the conclusion that you're "OK" or a relatively "good guy", but the moment you compare yourself to God, suddenly you see yourself from a divine perspective. Because I'm a person who's goal-oriented, who runs fast and easily outpaces those around me, I all too easily get impatient with people. Generally I can keep mild irritation in check, but sometimes, if I get tired or stressed, that impatience can rise to the fore. I'm not usually on a "hair trigger" when it comes to temper, but I can find myself losing my temper from time to time (and then needing to ask forgiveness from family after the fact).

I'm sharing all of this as background to what God is doing in my life. What I want to write is not just a "hey, I'm changed" kind of post, but rather to explain, at least as best as I can, the actual process I'm going through. You see, it's not good enough for God simply to tell me, "David, you need to change in this or that area." Using temper as an example, I already know I need to change in this area. In times past, Elena made certain that I knew this! And very early in my walk with the Lord, God was already clearly pointing out that this was an area where maturity was needed.

But just knowing is not enough. The Bible tells us that the Law of Moses was given for the precise purpose of showing us where we are wrong. Romans 3:20 reveals this purpose clearly:

"...through the law we become conscious of sin."

Or as J B Phillips renders this verse:

"...indeed it is the straight-edge of the Law that shows us how crooked we are."

The Law, therefore, was given to act like a mirror, revealing where I'm dirty.

But the Bible also reveals that there is another problem with how the Law works. When God gives a command, there is no innate power within me to obey that command. Think of the analogy of the mirror I just gave. Imagine that you've been working in the garden, pulling weeds. Because it's a hot day, you wipe the sweat off your brow everything couple of minutes or so. Without realising it, your face is now grimed with soil -- an absolutely horrendous sight!

You walk inside and suddenly catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You walk up to the mirror, and you now see yourself in all your glory! You see your true condition. The mirror didn't create the grime. But until you saw yourself in the mirror, you were oblivious to your true condition. This is what the Bible means when the Law, acting like a mirror, revealed the inner grime that you weren't aware of before.

But having seen yourself in the mirror, do you now take the mirror off the wall and proceed to rub your face with the mirror, in order to get clean? Obviously not. The mirror has no capacity to make you clean. It's sole purpose is to reveal the dirt and let you know something needs to change. But then, if you are wise, you will go to the faucet, turn on the water, and wash your face clean with the cleansing power of water. In the same way, the Law was not given to remedy the problem -- only to point out the problem. After the Law of God reveals where we are dirty with sin, we must then go to another source -- the Water of Life -- in order to get clean (note Ephesians 5:25-27).

But that's not all! The Bible also reveals another problem with the Law. Not only is there no innate power in the commandment itself to change what is wrong in me, there is actually an inner power in me that reacts to the commandment negatively! (check out the whole of Romans 7, particularly Romans 7:11-25, to see this problem explained in detail). The command actually amplifies the power of sin itself! Romans 7:7-8 describes how this problem works:

"...I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead."

What Paul is telling us here is that the Law is very effective at pointing out the problem, but is absolutely of no value when it comes to providing the answer. Worse, it actually reinforces the problem, creating an even stronger problem. We all have had experience with this inner, negative power. Even as a child, I'm sure you can remember times when your parents told you, "Don't touch that!", but the commandment actually stirred within you an even stronger desire to touch the forbidden thing!

This is why God, after pointing out the problem through the Law, takes a completely different approach in order to deal with the problem. Romans 8:3-4 reveals God's strategy of dealing with sin issues:

"For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."

I like the clarity in J B Phillips' phrasing of this passage of Scripture:

"The Law never succeeded in producing righteousness - the failure was always the weakness of human nature. But God has met this by sending his own Son Jesus Christ to live in that human nature which causes the trouble. And, while Christ was actually taking upon himself the sins of men, God condemned that sinful nature. So that we are able to meet the Law's requirements, so long as we are living no longer by the dictates of our sinful nature, but in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit."

Outside of God's solution, the carnal self is an intractable problem. Devoid of any empowerment from God, I am left with nothing but despair. But the good news is that with God, an internal power gets to work. This internal empowerment is described in Ephesians 3:20:

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us..."

This post has taken me a lot longer to articulate than I originally anticipated (hence the gap of one week between posts), but it's such an important part of my growth in the Lord at the moment, I'm going to take this up further in my next post (maybe even in the next few posts). In this post, I've had to backpedal a lot, in order to bring you up to where God has already worked in my life. A lot of what I shared in this post is not new revelation to me -- it is what I've been learning over the last 20 years. But in order to appreciate what is new, it's important for me to first lay the foundation to that new revelation. This really has been a journey for me -- a journey spanning the entirety of my life.

I also want to emphasize that temper is not the only thing God has been working on in my life. In fact, the list is quite long. He is dealing with issues that, among others, include:

• Personal security in relationships
• Reactions to others (that's quite a broad category)
• Fears, anxieties and worries
• The ability to be an "overcomer", despite negative emotions/discouragement

But I want to use the issue of temper as an example of what God is doing in my life, and how He is doing it. So, in my next post, I plan to share with you more on how God is doing His work of change in my life, particularly in the area of temper and impatience. I am indeed being conformed (slowly but surely) to the likeness of Jesus, through the inner empowerment of God's Spirit. God by nature is "slow to anger", and I too am learning what it means to be, by nature, "slow to anger".