What a damnation for one that will not confront and overcome anger! In biblical times, a city whose walls are broken down has no defence against an enemy. And the person who has no:

1. discipline,
2. willpower, or
3. self-restraint (rule)

has no defence against anger, lust, impatience, or other unchecked emotions!

Are you short-tempered? Does short-tempered mean angry? 

Short-tempered doesn’t necessarily mean angry; it is more a way of describing someone who gets angry quickly or may get angry for seemingly no reason. Are you such a person?

Anger is typically a transient emotion that arises in specific situations and may dissipate quickly. As we shared in the last post, anger can range from mild annoyance to intense rage but is often a temporary emotional state. In contrast, temper is a prolonged emotional state that characterises an individual’s baseline temperament. *Culled from Better Help and Mastering Anger

This baseline temperament demands getting God’s help. You need to identify the triggers and lay them before God in a persistent way, understanding the gravity of yielding to them!

Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves. But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities. For the sense and reason of the flesh is death, but the mind-set controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace. In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction, because it cannot! For no matter how hard they try; God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh. But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. And if you are not joined to the Spirit of the Anointed One, you are not of him. Now Christ lives his life in you! And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving Spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God. Romans 8:5-10 (TPT)

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. Romans 8:5-10 (MSG)

Seek God’s intervention. Understand and subject yourself to the truths declared in Philippians 2:12c-13 and Hebrews 13:20-21, for that’s the path to deliverance from all works of the flesh.

Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:12c-13 (NLT)

Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested as you live in the holy awe of God—which brings you trembling into his presence. God will continually revitalize you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:12c-13 (TPT)

Now may the God of peace who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21 (NLT) 

Now may the God who brought us peace by raising from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ so that he would be the Great Shepherd of his flock; and by the power of the blood of the eternal covenant may he work perfection into every part of you giving you all that you need to fulfil your destiny. And may he express through you all that is excellent and pleasing to him through your life-union with Jesus the Anointed One who is to receive all glory forever! Amen! Hebrews 13:20-21 (TPT) 

Seek the Lord to put the desire to overcome short temper and anger in you and believe for the empowerment to bring desire to reality. This is the year of deliverance and for attaining unto all that God wants to work for brotherly love in the midst of His people. Shalom.

Pastor Afolabi Oladele