After a believer has received the Lord into his life, his conduct and personality ought to undergo certain changes. One of these changes is related to temper.

Our expression toward God, others, and ourselves should be with love, meekness, peace, and humility. These qualities of expression are normal in the Christian life. Loss of temper is incompatible with these kinds of expression.

We must overcome evil with good. The evil of an ill temper can be overcome with expressions of love.

We are commanded to love people, whether believers or unbelievers. Love must rule our disposition as well as our action. It should be our constant attitude, leaving no place for bad temper.

An outburst of anger is the rudest of human emotions. The most precious of all man’s emotions is love, expressed through kindness and consideration for others.

The main cause for loss of temper is self-seeking. A person who does not strive in selfishness will rarely lose his temper. We who are children of God ought to deny rather than indulge ourselves. It is true that sometimes people are really unreasonable toward us, and often do things to us that are quite irritating.

Yet the Bible informs us that love “is not provoked” (1 Cor. 13:5). We ought to bear with one another instead of becoming provoked by each other.

When we become impatient with someone, we need to remember how patient and forgiving God has been with us. It is then we can endure the offense and forgive as we are forgiven. This also removes the possibility of becoming impatient and losing our temper.

The Lord wants us to be joyful. He exhorts us to “rejoice evermore.” How can a person be in a fit of temper and be joyful? Such a combination is impossible.

The Lord desires that nothing whatsoever should disturb our peace, so we may maintain peace in everything. The peace of God will keep (or garrison) our minds, and keep them, even under attach (Phil. 4:4). With our hearts and minds at peace, we have removed the possibility of falling into a fit of temper.

A disease and its symptoms are distinctly different things. A person may have appendicitis, which is a disease. His fever, which runs high, is a symptom. The symptom is caused by the disease.

Treating only the symptom would be futile. The fever may subside temporarily, but it will return if the disease is not treated.

Losing control of temper is not a disease: it is a symptom of a disease. Therefore, we should search out the source of the disease. Once the root is found and eliminated, the symptom will disappear.

What then is the disease that causes the symptom of losing one’s temper? There is a simple answer: loss of temper has to do with selfishness. The reason for our temper getting out of control is that we are determined to carry through with our own idea and opinion. The source of temper-loss is the “self.”

It is foolish to spend time dealing with temper and forget to deal with selfishness. Though I may be disappointed and frustrated, I will not become angry and lose my temper if there is no “self” in operation.

No one will be ill tempered if “self” has been subdued. For the source of bad temper is “self.”

Even though baffled and tried on all sides, I will still not lose my temper if there is no “self” in operation. And I battle “self” by subduing pride.

What causes temper? Selfishness. And the root of selfishness is pride. Pride is the actual disease and loss of temper is the symptom of that disease.

We must treat the disease rather than the symptom. So the way to deal with temper is to deal with pride. You will learn to recognize the hand of the Lord; that He is dealing with pride.

You will learn to say, “Lord, You were right in dealing with my pride,” and thus “self” will not be in operation and you will not lose your temper.

Let us realize that losing one’s temper is not hereditary. It is not an inherent disease that we cannot control. When we learn to quit excusing ourselves by blaming ancestry, or pride of race, we then have no desire to assert ourselves, or feel hurt and slighted; thus we will not have loss of temper.

The source of many outbursts of temper lies not only in pride, but also in the envy within our hearts. If you are one who exalts “self,” you will grow angry when you meet someone in a better and higher position than you.

Envy stirs up the temper, because the fruit of bad temper can stem from the root of envy. We must also eliminate envy from our heart before we can ever control temper. As long as the spirit of envy remains, there will be outbreaks of temper.

Many will lose their temper, because their self-love is wounded. A person who loves himself so very much will be most reluctant to suffer any loss, pain, or difficulty for anyone else.

Should anyone hurt his self-love and cause him difficulty or loss, he will burst into a fit of temper. However, a man who has been taught of the Lord knows that he lives by the grace of God and by His love.

God’s Grace, not self-love, sustains him. Whatever the reason to become angry, he will not do so because self-love has been dealt with an conquered.

Power Principles for Power Living by Dwight Thompson
All rights reserved. Used by permission.