Be angry, but do not sin: do not let the sun set on your anger:
Neither give license to the devil.

He was saying, "Deal with this anger now and get it out."

Deal with it the way God intended you to use it, not by swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other. You must first learn to express your anger.

Then the person who is exploding gets told,

"You need to learn to bite your tongue. When you get angry, take a deep breath and count to 10."

Have you ever heard that one? They say,

"Hold it inside. Just let it go and forgive the person."

It cannot be done. All you do is build it up and it will seethe and boil inside of you. And every time you think about the person you are going to want to swear or get mad again. It is bitterness within.

Attitudes to Forgiveness

How do we go about it correctly? The Bible gives us some very clear principles on how to deal with this. In Ephesians 4:32, Paul says these words.

And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

What is he speaking about? He is speaking here about getting your attitude right before you can deal with bitterness.

He speaks about three attitudes that you need to develop before you can even begin to resolve the matter of bitterness. He says you are to be kind, you are to be tender-hearted, and you are to forgive as Christ.

What do these three things mean? They are quite simple really.

Be Kind

To be kind means that you have to change your attitude to the offense and to what was done against you. You have to look at this thing and say,

"Was this thing worth me making such a ruckus about it? I'm ready to throw my whole marriage in, because this stupid woman is squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle instead of the end. I've told her about it so many times and she keeps doing it."

Or a wife says,

"Will he never learn to put his socks in the wash, instead of throwing them on the floor all the time and I have to go and pick them up?"

Do you think this is funny? People are ready to divorce over these things, because they let it build up and build up. Sometimes it is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Is the offense such a terrible thing? Kindness is looking at it and saying,

"Hang on, this is not the end of the world. I can handle this thing."

Be Tender-Hearted

You can now move beyond that. You have ticked that aspect off and you have said,

"Okay I can handle this; I can take it. I have big shoulders."

Paul then says you must be tender-hearted. Tender-hearted is when you now look beyond the offense and you begin to look at the offender. You begin to look at the person himself and you say,

"Shame, why is he doing this to me? Why is she acting that way? You know it is not normal. People don't normally behave that way unless there is a very good reason."

You begin to look a bit deeper in the person and you start to try and see things from their perspective. You try and see the problem through their eyes and you begin to say,

"You know for him to treat me the way he does, there must be a deep problem there. There must be something eating at him. There must be a deep need, a hurt or something that is inside of him, otherwise he would not treat me this way."

Do you know what you have actually done now? You have turned this whole thing right around.

Instead of this now being an attack against you that you have to fight against and retaliate, you have turned the whole thing around. You are now starting to look outwards to that person and saying,

"I want to minister to this person. I want to help them in their problem."

That person is no longer a problem to you. You now begin to see that the person has the problem, and you start to become part of the solution to the problem.

If you can turn your attitude around that way, do you know how easy it is to forgive as Jesus forgave?

How did Jesus forgive? He forgave as He hung on the cross by looking out at the people who were sticking spears in Him, who knocked nails into Him, and who were screaming at Him and taunting Him. As He did that He could say,

"Father, forgive them."

What did Jesus do? He was kind. He looked at this whole thing and He said,

"I can take this."

He looked at them and said,

"These poor people don't know what they are doing. Father forgive them."

He began to bless them. He began to turn towards them and speak forth blessing upon them instead of retaliation.

Child of God you can do that if you want to; if you will stop and take stock of the situation, if you will look at that offense and if you will say,

"I can handle that. I can take it."

You can do it if you will look at the person and say,

"I understand what is going on. I understand what is happening in this person. I want to try and see it through their eyes."

You begin to turn it around to become a ministry. You reach out with the hand of love and forgiveness and say,

"Father forgive them for what they said and did. They don't know what they are doing. They don't understand. Lord this person needs help. Let me help them. Father, can I be an instrument of your blessing to help them?"

You Are Responsible

When a conflict situation arises, if your attitude is right it is very easy for you to deal with it and to resolve it.

There are always two sides to a story aren't there? As the expression in the world goes, it takes two to tango. And when there is a conflict in a relationship there are always two sides to the story.

You might say, "There is her side and the correct one."

No.

"The right one and the wrong one."

No.

"Her side and his side. This person's side and that person's side."

No, there is actually only one side to the story, and that is God's side because that is the true side.

But you see you may have a situation where two people have ended up in conflict, in bitterness and anger. One person is wrong and the other one is right, but who is responsible to resolve the issue?

If you had a fight and you were wrong, who is responsible for fixing it? If you had a fight with someone and they were wrong, who is responsible for fixing it?

You are responsible. Which situation are we talking about? We are talking about both of them. You are always responsible, whether you are right or whether you are wrong.

You might say, "Do you mean to tell me that if someone did something wrong and offended me and they were in the wrong, that I am responsible to solve it?"

"Yes."

I will show it to you in the Word. Jesus was very clear on this. In Matthew 5:23 and 24 He says,

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you …

You say, "I didn't do anything wrong. What does he have against me?"

… Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

"But he has no right to be mad at me. I didn't do anything wrong."

God says, "Don't even come and pray to me. Don't come and worship me or offer your gift to me when you know that your brother is mad at you. Go and sort it out with him first."

"That's not fair Lord. He's the one who should be coming to me."

"Yes?"

That is right, and you should be going to him. In fact if he lives down the street and you guys had a blow up and both went home, a short while later you should be meeting half way.

Both of you should be heading to the other one to go and fix it up. That is God's order. You are always responsible.

You say, "Well what if he didn't come?"

I don't care. You should still be going because God holds you responsible.

Correct Reconciliation

You might say, "Okay, so what if he's wrong then? What if he has offended me and made me mad?"

Jesus covered that in Matthew 18:15. He said,

Moreover if your brother trespasses against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone …

Do you do it in a public place where everybody can hear out loud? No, you do it between you and him alone, in private.

… if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.
But if he will not listen to [you, then] take with you one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he fails to listen to them, tell [it] to the church: but if he fails to listen to the church, let him be to you as a heathen person and a tax collector.

I tell you what we usually do though. When a person makes me mad, the first thing I do is I want nothing to do with him. I want to treat him as a tax collector and a heathen.

Next I go and tell the whole church about it. Then I find a couple of people to gang up with to go and help me sort him out. And finally, if I have the guts, in the end I will face him alone.

Does that sound familiar? We have it back to front, but there is an order of discipline and reconciliation.

If that order is followed then we can bring reconciliation. Or we can come to a place where we can deal with that offense righteously before the Lord. We can bring discipline and pressure to bear upon that person because they have refused to comply.

These Scriptures that I shared above do not tell us how we can go about it. It just says,

"If you remember that your brother has something against you, go and sort it out with him."

Or, "If you know that your brother's made you mad, go and sort it out."

There is another Scripture that is a bit stronger than that. It says in Luke 17:3 and 4,

Take heed to yourselves: If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.
And if he trespass against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns again to you, saying, I repent; you will forgive him.

Two Sides to Forgiveness

There is a way of resolving bitterness, and it can only be done by accomplishing forgiveness. Forgiveness is a two-sided scale though, and unless you have the same thing on both sides, the scale will be imbalanced.

What are the two sides of the scale? They go like this. Firstly forgiveness must be requested. That is your one side of the scale. The other side is that forgiveness must be granted.

Forgiveness is two-sided. It must be requested and it must be granted. You cannot grant forgiveness until it has been requested, otherwise your scale is imbalanced.

This person has made you mad, or you have made somebody else mad. Until such time as somebody requests forgiveness, and until such time as that forgiveness has been granted, the matter remains unresolved.

That is why Jesus dealt with both sides of the story. Whether you know someone who has something against you, or whether you have something against them, it has to be resolved.

If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him and correct him. And if he repents and asks your forgiveness give it to him.

You see there has to be a request. Sometimes you have to rebuke a person before they acknowledge their sin and request forgiveness.

Until they have requested forgiveness, how can you forgive them? How can you forgive them while you are seething mad?

While the anger is boiling and bubbling inside of you, you cannot let go of it. You will have to confront, and you will have to do so correctly and Scripturally. That is the difficult part and we will look at it shortly.

If you are the kind of person who sulks and builds your anger up inside, you are not used to confronting. When you become mad at a person you do not want to confront them. You do not want to look them in the face and you do not want to be near them.

You stop attending church, because you know they are going to be there. Or if you have group chats, you do not join in anymore because you know they will be there.

You do not read their emails anymore. You put special rules in to make sure they get bombed out so you do not get them. There are barriers between you.

Asking for Forgiveness

Forgiveness has to be requested and it has to be granted before the matter is resolved

This is where so many people go wrong. They do not know how to ask for forgiveness and they do not know how to give it. It is so simple really, but I will guarantee that more than 90 percent of Christians do not know how to ask for forgiveness.

You might say to me,

"I know how to do it."

"How do you ask forgiveness?"

"Well I say I'm sorry."

Wrong! That is not how you ask for forgiveness. That one threw you didn't it?

You know when I was a kid and I was caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I was very sorry for the consequences. Sorry is not good enough though. It is not repentance. Sorry says,

"Oh dear I was caught."

That is not repentance. When mom is not looking you will do it again.

There is a kind of unwritten law in society that says,

"If you get away with it, it is legal. If you get caught, then it is wrong."

So if I get caught I am sorry. If I do not get caught I don't care, it was fine. It was acceptable and I got away with it."

Look at Your Beam

You need to know how to ask for forgiveness. The first way that you must learn to do it is by the method that Jesus spoke about when He said,

"Before you try and take the splinter out of your brother's eye, have a good look at the beam that is in your own. First take the beam out of your own eye and then you will be able to see clearly to go and take the splinter out of your brother's eye."

So you begin by looking at your beam first before you go confronting the other person. Before you go and try and whip that splinter out of his eye with some big tweezers, have a look at your own beam.

The best way to confront a person is to speak the truth in love and to somehow identify with the person. The best way to ever bring reconciliation is to come to the person acknowledging your failure and your weakness.

You would be amazed how quickly someone will open themselves up to you when you approach it in that way.

But when you come to a person, to point out their failures and weaknesses and to try and tell them what is wrong with them, they will start to justify themselves. They will give you 100 reasons why they were perfectly justified in doing what they did.

So start with your own beam and by looking at your problems. Here is one of the best ways to approach a person if you want to confront them about their failure and what they did that made you angry. You do not come to them and say,

"You did this. It was wrong."

You come to them this way and say,

"I have a problem."

When you tell a person that you have a problem and need their help with it, you would be amazed at how quickly people will help you. They will say,

"Sure, what can I help you with?"

You can then say,

"You know the other day when we were together you said something. Perhaps you didn't realize it, but what you said cut very deep and really hurt me. I found out that you said this about me to somebody else. Is it true because it really hurt?"

You are speaking the truth in love. You are coming and looking at your own beam and saying,

"I have a problem. This thing is really bugging me and hurting me. I'm angry and I know I shouldn't be. It is wrong before the Lord and I need to put it to sleep. I need your help with it. Will you cooperate with me?"

You will be amazed how easily you will get a person to open up and say,

"You were right. I was wrong."

When you come and say, "I was wrong with what I did," you will be surprised at how quickly somebody will say,

"I was also wrong. I shouldn't have said that and done that."

You will be amazed how quickly you can bring about reconciliation when you do this. However it will not work when you come to justify yourself or come with the kind of approach that says,

"I was wrong but you were too."

You see it is as bad as saying, "I'm sorry." You are not sorry and you are not repentant. You never ever thought you did wrong. You are just sorry because of the consequences.

Acknowledge Your Failure

That is not how you ask for forgiveness. If you are going to ask for forgiveness you have to start by looking at your own beam, and you have to acknowledge your failure. You must say something like this.

"I was wrong in saying that. I was wrong in doing this. I was wrong in what happened there."

Remember those words, "I was wrong," because you may have never heard them before. You have not heard them very often in this world I can assure you.

You have probably never ever heard them coming out of your mouth. Say them out loud. It will be a new experience. Practice those words, because until you learn to say them, you will not know how to ask for forgiveness or how to bring reconciliation.

The correct way is to say,

"I was wrong."

It is not, "I was wrong and so were you."

Do not add the other part. Say, "I was wrong," and then explain where you were wrong. Do not think you will get off the hook that easily.

Say, "I was wrong in the way I reacted. I was wrong in what I said and what I did. I was wrong and I should not have done that."

You do not say to the person,

"I'm sorry for what I did."

No, the correct way is,

"I was wrong. Please will you forgive me?"

Memorize these words. Write them on a card and read them over and over again. Say them and let them sink into you.

"I was wrong in … Will you please forgive me?"

That is how you begin to accomplish forgiveness. Forgiveness must be requested before it can be granted. How can a person grant you forgiveness if you say,

"I'm sorry."

Do you know what they are going to say? They will say,

"Oh forget it."

What they are saying is,

"Just leave the scale down on that side. I'm not putting anything on to balance it."

They are saying,

"Let's pretend it didn't happen."

But it did happen. They are saying,

"Okay so you were wrong. I just hate you for it. We'll just forget it, but you were still wrong."

The matter is not resolved. It is like coming to the Lord and confessing your sin and never being cleansed of it.

It is like never having received forgiveness, never having your conscience cleared, and living the rest of your life with the guilt. The guilt cannot be taken away until forgiveness is granted.

If you come to the Lord to confess your sins you have learned how to do it. You say,

"Father forgive me; I'm a sinner."

What did the publican do? He smote his breast and said,

"God be merciful to me, a sinner."

The righteous Pharisee walked up and down and said,

"I thank you God that I'm not like other men."

Jesus said, "Who went home justified?"

The one who admitted his sin did. Admit your sin, confess it and ask for forgiveness, and it will be granted.

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