Ephesians 4:26-27

"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

Neither give place to the devil. "

If we learn to deal with Anger rightly, it will be an opportunity for God. Let it be so, for his glory and our good.

THE INEVITABILITY OF ANGER

In vs. 26, a curious fact is that both verbs are imperatives. "Be angry" is grammatically parallel with "sin not." So what Paul is saying is not, "If you do happen to experience this, here is how to handle it." A better paraphrase would be, "When you get angry--as I assume you will--make sure you do not sin." So obviously Anger is not a sin in itself. An even better paraphrase then would be, "Learn to be angry without sinning--even as Jesus did."

We have to remember that emotions are natural occurrences that are not wrong in themselves. And this applies to all of them. A good analogy would be with the principle that "every good and perfect gift comes from above." NOTHING that God made is evil. Nothing. But those good gifts become the occasion of evil to us when we pursue them in the wrong amount, at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. Likewise, every natural emotion that God designed our bodies to produce has an appropriate object . There are no exceptions--not even hatred. But we must attach those feelings to their appropriate objects, and this, as fallen people, we do not naturally do any more. We are to hate the sin--not the sinner.

Now, Anger is no exception to this rule. It is an inevitable part of life, with its own appropriate objects, which we will look at in a moment. You cannot eliminate it, and should not try; but you should learn to handle it wisely and channel it appropriately.  

THE EFFECTS OF ANGER:

Why are we given emotions in general? Think about the fact that the same root, "mot," occurs in the words emotion, motion, motor, motive, motivation, and motivate . Emotions are about movement. Their proper function is to aid the Reason in moving the Will to action.

So Emotion is what is needed to enable the Reason to move the Will to do what is required. That is why, when this happens, we say that the person was "motivated."

Well, then. The purpose of Anger is to provide the motivation required for heroic defensive or offensive action in a just cause. It is to the consciousness what adrenaline is to the body. If we were not fallen, we would only feel it when our cause was truly just, and it would cooperate with Reason to lead us only to just and appropriate acts in response to the perceived threat or injustice. And therein, of course, lies the rub.

When felt appropriately and acted on rightly, Anger leads to a cleansing Katharsis. But what if it is felt or indulged or acted on wrongly? This can happen in two ways. Our Anger may be directed at the person (always a wrong object for we who are fallen like him), leading to hate or bitterness. Or it may be directed inward at ourselves and suppressed, leading in the short term to a possibly debilitating depression and in the long run to an uncontrolled outburst over some triviality not in itself deserving of such a response. And either of these syndromes can lead to ulcers, heart disease, cancer, and violence, whether physical or verbal. In such cases, "The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God" (James 1:20).

ELIMINATION OF ANGER (when wrong)

How do we deal with our Anger daily? We do something about it. And what we do depends on whether it is righteous Anger or not.

Even righteous Anger needs to be released daily. Going to bed with even righteous anger, that is, anger directed to an appropriate object, unresolved, is bad for you because it is disobedient. If it is indeed righteous anger, you need to do something constructive about it. It is there precisely to motivate you to constructive action; if you do not take any, you are just revving your psychological engine and grinding your emotional gears without ever putting the car into motion, and this will wear you out to no good purpose.

So write a letter to your congressman or to the editorial page of your local paper, or volunteer at a shelter for unwed mothers, or participate in a peaceful protest, or study about the issue (do this first, actually), or write a check to a Political Action Committee or to a Christian ministry constructively dealing with the problem. The things you can do are endless. 

The point is that righteous Anger is good for you and for your community if it makes you part of the solution; otherwise even righteous Anger is bad both for you and the community, because it becomes unrighteous by not being acted on obediently and in a Christlike manner. So do not take it to bed with you, but release it in constructive action. That is what it is for.

CONCLUSION

We need to learn ways of letting the negative emotional residue of our Anger drain off in ways that are innocent and healthy. Vigorous physical exercise and music are ways that many people have found helpful [having an adorable friend is very handy too!] Find something that works for you. And above all, we are to do this daily, not letting the sun set with Anger undealt with.

[source: http://doulomen.tripod.com/sermons/Ephesians4_26-27.htm]