Control Anger

I remember when this young man came to me one day. That's a true story. He said, he said, you know what? One night, I was in my room and I started talking to the Lord Jesus.

I said, Lord, I was reading his word and I said, I'm going to choose one thing for tomorrow not to do. I'm going to choose one thing for tomorrow, just one thing. Lord, please help me.

I don't want to fail in this one thing. And what was that thing? Not to be angry. He said, I said, Lord, by your grace, I promise I will not be angry tomorrow, no matter what happens.

He said, Bishop, you have no idea what happened tomorrow. All hell broke loose. He said, I catch the bus to work every single day without fail.

It's the same bus, the same number, the same people, day in, day out. He said, that day it was totally different. I got onto the bus.

The moment I said, somebody clinked onto me, wants to punch me. He started using foul language, telling me off, provoking me to have a good punch. He said, I was about to lose it.

And then I remembered, oh, the Lord reminded me, oh, I promise Lord, through your grace, I will not get angry. I said, oh, look at Satan, he is on fire. Oh, he has eaten that red Indian hot pepper, you know, atta, atta, very good.

So he said, I'm not gonna lose it. He said, I went to work, the same work colleagues, day in, day out. I would say, good morning to everyone.

They're all cool as a cucumber. I walked in, everybody is a vicious wolf, trying to devour me. Good morning, good morning.

Everybody's yelling, everybody's telling me off. I said, man, what happened? Wow, the Lord is testing me. He said, I held myself together.

When I got home, I was exhausted, because I wanted to shred them. And I promised the Lord, I will keep myself from being angry, even though it was very tiring. But I won in Jesus.

I said, Lord, tomorrow, I'm gonna be a lovey-dovey person with everyone that comes my way. And everybody who comes your way is gonna be a roaring lion, a vicious lion, wants to devour you, but you show love. It's not easy.

It takes power, it takes wisdom, it takes strength to do good. Doing good requires a lot of wisdom. Doing evil requires a lot of ignorance.

So when people do evil, they are totally ignorant people. No love, no wisdom. The verse which you read, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, Ephesians 4.29. So when we come and say something that is of a corrupt nature, we need to run and say, Lord, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I shouldn't have allowed this word to come out of my mouth, because there is no corrupt word that comes out of the mouth of the Lord Jesus.

Can I share with you another true story, or are you in a rush? Are you in a rush? Be honest. Are you in a rush? Okay. This young girl in her early 20s loved the Lord from the heart.

She adored the Lord. She actually dedicated her life for the Lord Jesus. She didn't want to get married, nothing.

All she wanted is to serve the Lord, going to church, praying, worshiping, and serving the Lord, whatever the Lord wanted of her. She had one weakness, one very bad, ugly weakness. Every time she faced that weakness, she fell.

She couldn't overcome it. What was her weakness? There was a certain TV series. She had to see it.

She could not do without watching it. And it was every night at 9pm. Every night at 9pm.

It's a true story. She would be in her room praying, reading the Holy Bible, contemplating. But 5 to 9pm, the skin started itching, very addicted to those TV series.

5 to 9pm, she's now itching. Oh Lord, please have mercy on me. Shall I continue? Shall I not? One minute to 9pm, she would drop the Holy Bible, drop everything, and run into the hall and turn the TV on and watch that series.

After finishing, she would be miserable, hating herself. Why did I do that? I promised the Lord I'm not going to do it. And all of us have certain habits.

We pray and beg the Lord not to do them. We do them and then we regret them badly. So she would cry every night to sleep.

One night, after many nights have gone by, and failing the same mistake, she decided to do something kind of a risky approach. She takes a picture of the Lord Jesus and on her door room, she glues one half of the picture on the door, the other half on the wall. And she made sure that it's glued so strongly, the only way for the door to open is to rip that picture in half.

And she was extremely frightened. She loves the Lord from the heart. She's got a weakness.

So she glued the picture half on the door, half on the wall. And she went and sat on the bed and started praying and reading the Holy Bible. Five to nine came, started itching.

Give me some of that. Started itching one to nine. Badly, she started jumping.

She walked and put her hand on that doorknob to open the door. She looks at the picture. She sees the Lord looking at her with a compassionate look.

If I open the door, I'll rip it in half. I would rather rip myself in half and not the picture of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She was extremely tempted to open the door.

Nine o'clock came, one minute pass, five minute pass, ten minute pass. She goes back and sits on that bed. And that was the last night she ever watched those series ever again.

The more you read the Holy Bible, the more you will start imitating the Lord. When you read the Holy Bible, you are reading the thought of God, of Christ. So you are reading the way he talks.

The more you practice, the more you start talking like him. The more, you see, the word, you start thinking what you are hearing, what you are reading. You start thinking.

And what you will think, eventually you will do. So the more of God's thought comes into your head, the more of God's deed you will do. You see, when Saint Paul says in Romans 12, my brethren, do not be conformed to the world, but rather transformed.

Conformed meaning don't imitate the world. Don't imitate the people of the world. Don't imitate the evilness of the world, because you don't simply belong to the world.

You belong to Christ, who purchased you with his own precious blood on the cross, on Calvary. You belong to the Lord Jesus. The language is different.

The behavior is different. The way is different. Everything is different between Christ and Satan.

Everything. So now you belong to Christ. The way you talk, the way you dress, the way you behave needs to be totally and utterly different to the way the world behaves and talks.

How do I be transformed, rather conformed? He says, by the renewal of your mind. By the renew of your mind. So the only way for me and you, you and me, to be transformed and not conformed to the world, is to renew our mind.

What does the word renew mean here? It's a compounded word. R-E, prefix, to go back, rewind. So R-E is to go back.

New means origin. Origin. Because my beloved, in this realm there is nothing new to God.

Everything is of old. It is new to us because we never knew it existed until we discovered it. But it was always there.

We didn't know it was until we found out. And when we discovered it, we said this is a new thing. It's a new thing for me and you.

But for God, it's ancient. He put it there from the very beginning. So renew, go back to your origin.

And who is your origin? Genesis 1.1, in the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth. How do I be transformed? I need to go back to my origin, i.e. God. When I go back to God, God says, I've given you my word, my son.

Read him, breathe him, eat him, drink him, in order to be like him. When you start talking his way, when you start thinking his way, when you start walking his way, you're transformed. And how did this happen? When you read his word, the Holy Bible.

You are receiving the thought of Christ. You start thinking like Christ. And practice makes perfect.

The more you read it, the more you'll be like it.