Do You Know How to Solve Your Angry Temper?

Question: Despite having been a believer in the Lord for many years, I still live within a cycle of sinning and confessing and am hot-tempered. Whether at home or in my company, when others say or do something that I do not like, I cannot keep myself from losing my temper—this does trouble me a lot. I want to seek how to resolve my angry temper and stop sinning and how to put the Lord’s teachings into practice.

Answer: Hello, the problem you describe is commonplace among believers. If we want to resolve our angry temper, we should first discover the source of anger. Actually, it’s because we are controlled by our sinful nature that we often lose our temper and reveal hot-headedness when encountering things that are at odds with our ideas. For example, controlled by our arrogant and conceited nature, we always think that our own opinions are complete and most correct, wanting to have the final say in all things and wanting others to act according to our own wishes. As soon as our families, friends or colleagues do something at odds with our own ideas or do not listen to us, we will lose our temper and scold them, unable to control ourselves. In addition, because we are directed by our own selfish and greedy nature, everything we do is for our own profit, and once our interests are damaged, we will uncontrollably lose our temper and reveal our hot-headedness. … It can be seen that it’s our sinful nature that causes us to become angry and expose hot blood. If our sinful nature isn’t resolved, there will be no way for us to resolve our anger. When encountering things we don’t like, even if we try hard to restrain ourselves, we are only able to restrain ourselves for a time and may lose our temper the next moment.

Maybe some people will ask, “After we receive the Lord Jesus’ redemption, haven’t we had our sins forgiven? Why are we capable of losing our temper in spite of ourselves, why are we under the control of our sinful nature and unable to escape the bondage of sin?” Let’s take a look at two passages of God’s words, and then we’ll understand. God says, “The sins of man could be forgiven through the sin offering, but as for just how man can be made to sin no more, and how his sinful nature may be extirpated completely and transformed, he has no way of solving this problem. The sins of man were forgiven, and this is because of the work of God’s crucifixion, but man continued to live within his corrupt satanic disposition of old. This being so, man must be completely saved from his corrupt satanic disposition, so that his sinful nature may be completely extirpated, never to develop again, thus enabling the disposition of man to be transformed. This would require man to grasp the path of growth in life, to grasp the way of life, and to grasp the way to change his disposition. Furthermore, it would require man to act in accordance with this path, so that his disposition may gradually be changed and he may live under the shining of the light, so that all that he does may be in accord with the will of God, so that he may cast away his corrupt satanic disposition, and so that he may break free from Satan’s influence of darkness, thereby emerging fully from sin. Only then will man receive complete salvation.”

“Though Jesus did much work among man, He only completed the redemption of all mankind and became man’s sin offering; He did not rid man of all his corrupt disposition. Fully saving man from the influence of Satan not only required Jesus to become the sin offering and bear the sins of man, but it also required God to do even greater work to rid man completely of his satanically corrupted disposition. And so, now that man has been forgiven of his sins, God has returned to the flesh to lead man into the new age, and begun the work of chastisement and judgment. This work has brought man into a higher realm. All those who submit under His dominion shall enjoy higher truth and receive greater blessings. They shall truly live in the light, and they shall gain the truth, the way, and the life.”

We can learn from these words of God that in the Age of Grace, the Lord Jesus performed the work of the redemption of mankind, which enabled mankind to be forgiven of sins and escape from being condemned and cursed by the laws. As long as we accept the Lord Jesus’ salvation and pray to Him to confess, our sins will be absolved by the Lord and we can gain peace and joy from Him. What the Lord Jesus did was the work of redemption, which was to absolve man’s sins and free man from the condemnation of the laws. But our sinful nature still remains, which is deeper than sin and much harder to resolve, and is the root cause of us committing sins and resisting God. We all have first-hand experience of this: Despite how hard we try to suppress our flesh, we are incapable of practicing the Lord’s words and are unable to control our anger, obey God and be honest people. When we encounter things that impinge on our own interests, we will tell lies and deceive; when natural or man-made disasters come upon us, when we encounter trials and tribulations, we will reason with God, go against God, and even blame and betray Him. The list goes on. It can be seen that if our sinful nature remains unresolved, we will eternally live in the painful cycle of sinning and then confessing and can’t be free from the bonds and constraints of sin.

God once said, “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45). “Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin. And the servant stays not in the house for ever: but the son stays ever” (John 8:34–35). It’s recorded in Hebrews 10:26–27: “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.” God is holy and righteous, so people who constantly sin and resist God cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, according to His management plan to save mankind and the actual requirements of corrupt humanity, God will express the truth in the last days to carry out the work of judgment beginning with the house of God and to resolve the key problem that corrupt mankind is controlled by their satanic nature. That is the way that man will gradually free themselves from their satanic disposition, be cleansed and enter the kingdom of heaven. It’s just like what the Lord Jesus prophesied: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:12–13). “He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12: 48). And in 1 Peter 4:17 it is written, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.” Revelation 22: 14 says, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” It is clear that only by accepting the judgment work done by the returned Lord can we resolve our angry temper, thoroughly cast off the bonds and constraints of sin, and have our sinful nature purified.

Now, only The Church of Almighty God is openly testifying that the Lord Jesus has returned already. He has expressed the truth and performed the work of judgment beginning with God’s house in order to fully purify mankind and save them from the bonds of sins once and for all, thus fulfilling the prophecies of the Lord Jesus returning to express the truth and to do the work of judgment. Then how does Almighty God, Christ of the last days, carry out the work of judgment to cleanse people. Almighty God says, “In the last days, Christ uses a variety of truths to teach man, to expose the substance of man, and to dissect the words and deeds of man. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should obey God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God, and so on. These words are all directed at the substance of man and his corrupt disposition. In particular, the words that expose how man spurns God are spoken in regard to how man is an embodiment of Satan, and an enemy force against God. In undertaking His work of judgment, God does not simply make clear the nature of man with a few words; He exposes, deals with, and prunes over the long term. These methods of exposure, dealing, and pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words, but with the truth of which man is utterly bereft. Only methods such as these can be called judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be subdued and thoroughly convinced into submission to God, and moreover gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment allows man to gain much understanding of the will of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It also allows man to recognize and know his corrupt essence and the roots of his corruption, as well as to discover the ugliness of man. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the essence of this work is actually the work of opening up the truth, the way, and the life of God to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God.”

God’s words show us that God uses the truths He has expressed in the last days to judge corrupted humanity, that is, He uses the truth to cleanse corrupted mankind of their satanic dispositions and to resolve the problem of their nature and substance: resistance to God. In the judgment work of the last days, Almighty God expresses words to unveil the mysteries of God’s 6,000-year management plan and shows us the path to purification and salvation in our faith. At the same time, He thoroughly exposes our nature and substance corrupted by Satan, the truth of our corruption, and the roots of our sins. Through the revelation and judgment of God’s words, we come to see clearly how profoundly we have been corrupted by Satan, that we brim with the satanic dispositions of arrogance, wickedness and deceitfulness, and that there is nothing human in what we live out. This allows us to truly repent and makes us willing to accept God’s chastisement and judgment, trials and refinement, and willing to pursue the truth and a change in disposition and to conduct ourselves in accordance with God’s words. Gradually, we are able to free ourselves from the controls and restrictions of our corrupt satanic disposition. This is achieved through the judgment and chastisement of God’s words.

Take me as an example. When I was interacting with friends and family, once they spoke or acted in a way that I didn’t like, I would become very angry and expose hot blood despite myself. Each time after I lost my temper, I would regret I didn’t control my anger and then I would pray to God to confess my sins. Afterward, however, I would just repeat the same old mistakes. I was really suffering, but no matter how hard I tried to restrain myself, I was incapable of resolving my angry temper. One time, my little sister lost her job and was anxious. I asked many people for help and finally found a job for my sister. I thought that my sister would surely be very happy, but to my surprise, she said that she wanted an easy job with a high salary and later she rejected the job offer without discussing it with me. I became so angry upon learning about this and scolded my sister that she did not at all appreciate my kindness. I had worked hard to find a job for her, but she actually turned down the job offer before discussing it with me, thinking nothing of me. After I lost my temper with my sister, I felt so upset and thought that I shouldn’t have treated her that way. Then I came before God to pray to Him and seek how to resolve this problem. Later, I read a passage of Almighty God’s words, “Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon opportunities to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up in rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status also often lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their private interests. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. Man will flare up in anger and vent his emotions in order to defend and uphold the existence of sin, and these actions are the ways in which man expresses his dissatisfaction; they brim with impurities, with schemes and intrigues, with man’s corruption and evil, and more than anything else, they brim with man’s wild ambitions and desires.”

Through the judgment and revelation of Almighty God’s words, I understood that there is a reason why corrupt mankind flares up in anger. When our personal pride and interests are wounded, we will express our dissatisfaction and reveal hot-bloodedness and naturalness to safeguard our personal interests and face, lacking the reason one should possess with proper humanity. This is how we are being controlled by our own arrogant and conceited corrupt nature. Driven by our arrogant disposition, we believe ourselves to be of utmost importance, always want to lord over others, and place great importance on our interest, face and status. As soon as others’ words or actions impinge on our own interests, face and status, we will lose our temper to express our dissatisfaction and to show our power so that others may listen to us. I realized that the reason why I flared up in anger and scolded my sister was that she did not listen to me but turned down the job offer without checking with me first and I thought that she was treating me as insignificant. I came to realize that all this was caused by my arrogant disposition, which led me to regard myself too highly, want other people to listen to me, and reveal hot-bloodedness the moment my interests were impinged upon.

After I had known the source of my anger and seen clearly how wicked and ugly I was when I lived by my arrogant disposition, I began to hate and loathe myself from the bottom of my heart, and wished not to reveal hot-bloodedness and naturalness which was despised by God. I also found the resolution to forsake Satan, practice the truth and obey God. I then read God’s words which say, “Before everything you do, before your hot-bloodedness bursts forth, you must calm yourself, call out God’s name, and think about whether what you are doing is in accordance with His will; if what you are doing is unsatisfactory to God, He will help you tame your hot-bloodedness, little by little, and sort the situation out. Will this be of benefit to you? If people are too intractable when they are together, it will be difficult for them to return to the earliest state of their relationship, so, when you are about to vent, when naturalness and hot-bloodedness are about to burst forth from you, and when this naturalness and hot-bloodedness are liable to hurt others, you had better think a while, and be sure to pray more to God. The brothers and sisters of the church, or members of your family—you have to get along with all of them. This is the minimum requirement.”

I found the way to resolve my angry temper from these words of God. What happens every day is presided and arranged by God, so we shouldn’t get stuck in the idea of right and wrong or treat things by relying on our own mind, naturalness and corrupt disposition. The key is that we should possess a seeking and obedient attitude, forsake our flesh, practice the truth and live in accordance with God’s words. Whenever we realize that we are about to lose our temper, we should quickly come before God, pray to Him and ask Him to help us forsake the flesh. Once God sees our determination to forsake the flesh and practice the truth, He will lead us to triumph over the control of corrupt disposition so that we are able to avoid revealing hot-bloodedness.

Later, I started to put God’s words into practice. When I met with things that were not to my liking and I was about to lose my temper, I would immediately pray to God and quiet myself before God to reflect on why I felt like losing my temper. Then I would read God’s words, and through the guidance of God’s words I gained the strength to forsake the flesh and practice the truth. Though my experience is shallow, I really have learned from this that we have no way to resolve our corrupt disposition ourselves. Only God’s work of judgment and chastisement in the last days can save us from the bondage and harm of corrupt disposition and change and cleanse us

Therefore, if we want to resolve our angry temper and thoroughly cast off the bonds and fetters of sin, we should accept God’s work of judgment in the last days, which is the only way for us to be purified and to attain true salvation.

Editor’s Note: I trust that by reading this article you will now have found the path to resolve an angry temper. If you would like to learn more or have other questions, please get in touch with us via live chat.