Righteous Anger vs. Destructive Anger. How to Tell the Difference

Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. Micah 7:18


God’s anger is a righteous anger. Man’s anger is a destructive anger. What makes the difference?

God’s anger flows from His character of justice. He angers over sin and uses that anger to do justice. Justice’s purpose is to propel repentance; once repentance has taken root and the action of change begins to reveal itself in a person’s life, then God lets the anger go. God does not deal in bitterness or harbor grudges. His purpose is holy and loving. His anger moves a person’s life from sin to His unchanging love. For it is in this unchanging love that God chooses to reside. It is here He finds His greatest delight. His unchanging love is filled with grace, mercy, and kindness.

However, man, in his right to be angry at times does not come to this full circle to grace, mercy and kindness. He who is angry may be angry for the right reasons; he may want justice and will struggle to get that justice and he may even experience the repentance he is longing after; but repentance for man is not enough. For man does deal in bitterness and grudges. Instead of unchanging love, man wants payment for the wrong done. This is where their anger becomes unholy, unrighteous and destructive. Man holds onto his anger, allows it to grow, fester, and destroy.

So, how does man go from this destructive state to the state of delighting in unchanging love, filled with grace, mercy and kindness?

God has granted us everything needed that pertains to our life and everything needed that pertains to godliness. The conduit we find this “everything needed” is through the true knowledge of His Son, Jesus. When we grow in our knowledge of Jesus, he becomes the endless channel that makes it possible for us to be partakers of His divine nature allowing us to also delight in what He delights: unchanging love. We are able to be righteous in our anger and holy in our love. We are able to escape the corruption that anger produces in our hearts and find joy in the changed lives around us. But the minute we cut off that channel, stop learning and growing in our Lord, Jesus Christ, we put a kink in the channel and the flow of God’s delights stop. Subsequently, we become corrupt in our love; we desire payment as we anchor our hearts in bitterness and grudges. We finish with never knowing the true joy of unending love, unchanging grace, and unswerving mercy.

Instead of striving and struggling in our nature, we embrace the knowledge of Jesus, our Lord, by growing moment by moment in His nature. For by His grace, His peace, His love, “…He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them we might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” (2 Peter 1:4)