6 “Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you,b but you must master it.”
-Genesis 4:7
The Greek word for “master” is mashal, which means to rule, have dominion, reign, gain control [Strong’s#4910]. God wants us, the believers, to gain control of our emotions when it gets stirred.
When we are not obeying God’s Word, He will not accept our sacrifices. Rejection from the LORD will naturally get us angry. However, the LORD’s rejection is just and right because we are not living according to His standard, as found in His written Word.
How can we master anger? The first thing is to revisit what the LORD told Cain in Genesis 4:7, which was, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” Living right in the presence of the Lord is the first step to take. The only way to know how to live right is to get to know Him through His written Word daily.
Anger gives Satan a foothold and an entryway into your life to defeat you.
26 “Be angry, yet do not sin.” Do not let the sun set upon your anger, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
-Ephesians 26-27
Jesus tells us a way how to overcome temptations that can spur our temper or any variety of ways to fall into sin or give the devil a foothold.
The word “temptation” means to be put to the test or to go through a trial.
41 “Watch and pray so that you will not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
-Matthew 26:41
Prayer keeps the person who has believed in Jesus, humble, and in constant dependency upon Him. God will only respond to a person of prayer. Prayer also keeps our faith strong, showing the level of our faith in the Lord, read Luke Chapter 18, below.
1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray at all times and not lose heart: 2 “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected men. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept appealing to him, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’
4 For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect men, 5 yet because this widow keeps pestering me, I will give her justice. Then she will stop wearing me out with her perpetual requests.’ ”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to the words of the unjust judge. 7 Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help? 8 I tell you, He will promptly carry out justice on their behalf. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”
-Luke 18:1-8
Two men who couldn’t be defeated by the devil were Job, a man of integrity, and Daniel, who was treasured by God.
Job and Daniel were men of prayer, which kept their faith in the LORD strong and unmovable.
JOB
4 Job’s sons would take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 5 And when the days of feasting were over, Job would send for his children to purify them, rising early in the morning to offer burnt offerings for all of them. For Job thought, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular practice.
-Job 1:4-5
DANIEL
10 Now when Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house, where the windows of his upper room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
-Daniel 6:10
The only way that we can master our anger and our bad temper is by obeying the Lord Jesus Christ through His Word and staying in communication through prayer for strength. We can read the Scriptures, but without prayer, we can’t live it out. We can pray, but without reading God’s Word, we won’t know what to pray for and how to live. Both are essential, and you can’t do one without the other.
Spiritual Minefield 