We’re encouraging each of us to pray daily during this sermon series, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” So we might expect the theme passage in Ephesians to say, “Never get angry.” Instead we find that it said, “Be angry without sinning.” Then, as though realizing that “be angry without sinning” might be just a bit vague (“How do I do that?”), Paul added this timeless relational advice: “Don’t let the sun set on your anger,” or, as The Message puts it, “Don’t go to bed angry.”

• Anger, in itself, is not bad—it is one of four basic human emotions. We can be angry without sinning. Ephesians also connected the topic of anger with teaching about honesty. When have you seen a failure to honestly face anger (your own or someone else’s) be destructive to a relationship? Anger becomes risky when we let it fester and don’t deal with it directly. One counselor said, “Bitterness is anger grown stale.” How good are you at recognizing your own anger, and then promptly dealing constructively and honestly with it?