“In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26-27)

Today’s verse encompasses a command and wisdom as only scripture can. I can’t speak for anyone else but the first rationalization I use for my poor actions in a moment is that “I was so angry.” But scripture takes this justification away from us as an excuse. Paul writes quite plainly that we should strive not to sin in our anger. Now of course this is a difficult command to follow, and to do so will require a little exploration into what happens when anger sets in. When we are angered by a situation our focus turns completely inward. As we focus on our own central hurt the fire within us burns where all we know is what is happening inside ourselves. The justification for sinning in anger then becomes the natural response. We feel hurt, we feel disrespected, we feel…fill in the blank, so the sin I did in that moment is somehow scaled differently because of how we felt. However, the fact of this matter works like this; if we hurt someone else while angry, it is still sin. The devil wants us to continue to focus on our internal thoughts to justify our external actions. But we need to remain grounded in the absolute truth. Sin is sin. It doesn’t matter how you got there or what you were feeling when sin occurred, we just need to know that sin occurred. And when we see sin for what it is, we can evaluate what happened accurately; repent and ask for forgiveness. So I don’t know if anyone else uses anger as an excuse for sin. But if you do, I pray that when anger strikes we can look outward and upward to Christ Jesus – not falling for the tricks of the devil to see our own feelings as an excuse for sin.