Robert Jones has an article on Helping Others Deal with Their Anger (pdf). He shares this basic three-pronged ministry agenda:
What about specific truths about God which are vital for those with angry hearts? Jones highlights three:
- First, enter the person’s world, understand him and his situation, and give Gospel hope.
- Second, help the person to root out his sinful heart beliefs and motives that cause sinful anger and to embrace the God of grace.
- Third, help the person put off his sinful anger expressions and replace them with godly words and actions.
What about specific truths about God which are vital for those with angry hearts? Jones highlights three:
1. God is the Righteous Judge of Your Offenders. Angry people who have been sinned against need to know that a just God will punish sin and vindicate His people. They need to let God be angry for them and to trust in God’s perfect justice—perfect in discernment, in timing, and in degree of punishment. In His own time and His own way, He will condemn the guilty and vindicate the righteous.
2. God is the Merciful Forgiver and Righteous Judge of Your Sins. Angry people focus on the specks in others’ eyes and ignore the planks in their own (Matt. 7:3-5). The place to begin to dislodge this self-centered distortion is to know that God in Christ has forgiven believers their massive, multimillion-dollar sin debt against Him.... In addition, we want to help angry people expand their awareness and reverence for God as their holy judge. While tempted to return evil for evil, they need to know that God’s holy eyes gaze upon them.
3. God is your Good, Loving, and Sovereign Father. Angry Christians often feel out of control—lost, abandoned and orphaned in a world out of control. Our agenda is simple: help them know God as their Father. They are sons, not slaves; heirs, not orphans (Gal. 3-4).
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