Angry With Your Brother

Angry With Your Brother
By M.T. Clark — P-2095 | 10/15/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast
Today’s Message on YouTube:

Today’s photo of my canine pal Harley on a frosty morning along Freedom Road, with the first hard frost of the fall silvering the grass beside the farm road and the trees starting to turn in the distance, comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this view during an early morning walk on October 10, 2025.

Well, it’s Thursday, and I share this pathway photo as a visual reminder or an encouragement to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship, where the conditions may not always be pleasant, but where you can be sure that you will never walk alone. 

Those walks with Harley down Freedom Road in Easton are a thing of the past now, and while I had to suffer through some cold mornings while I was out walking the dog, I don’t regret a single one because I not only got to enjoy the beauty of the Easton country landscapes for sunrises, sunsets, and everywhere in between throughout the day, I also used those treks as prayer walks, literally walking and talking with God.  And that is the enduring thing about our Christian faith – it isn’t about ceremonies, traditions, or rules for morality – it’s about a real conversational relationship with the Lord. If you’re not talking to Him, you’re not walking with Him.

Our faith is one of companionship. God is our most faithful friend. God will never leave us or forsake us, and He is always available to talk to. Jesus told us that the top priority of our lives should be to love God with all our hearts, minds, and strength.  God loves us perfectly and it is only right to love Him in return.

But Jesus also told us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  God is not only there for us personally. He also gives us faithful friends from the body of Christ to do life with as we seek to encourage our unbelieving neighbors to know Him and to make peace with Him too. Life in this broken world isn’t easy, but when we exercise our freedom in Christ and choose to walk in the ways of the Lord, God provides us family, friends, and everything else we need to carry on and to serve His kingdom with peace and joy.

Speaking of freedom to walk with the Lord, our series “The Beatitudes” continues today with the first place in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus takes a well-known commandment and shows us the deeper heart standard behind it.

Angry With Your Brother

Jesus moves from the broad promise of fulfilling the Law to the specific business of showing us what He meant. He takes six commandments every Jewish listener would have known by heart and raises the standard above the behavior to the heart underneath it. The first one He deals with is murder. Matthew 5:21-22 (NKJV) tells us:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”

The old commandment was clear enough. Do not take a man’s life. Jesus does not change that commandment. He expands it. He says that anger with a brother without a cause carries the same spiritual weight before God that murder does. According to Jesus. contempt words like “Raca” (which means empty-headed or worthless) and “You fool” belong in the same category as murder. The scornful mocker’s hands may be clean, but he is killing his brothers and sisters with his hateful attitude and words in his heart.

This is where the Sermon on the Mount starts to go deeper than most of us are comfortable with. We can go through a whole life without ever physically harming another person, but we can’t imagine going through life without ever being angry at somebody. The commandment Jesus is working with here is not only about what we do with our bodies. It is about what we are willing to carry in our hearts.

But Jesus shows us how serious He is about practicing overcoming hatred or malice in Matthew 5:23-24 (NKJV) where He tells us:

“Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Think about what Jesus is saying. If we are about to worship God, and we remember that a brother or sister has a legitimate grievance with us, the right move is to stop what we are doing and to go find that person and make it right first. Only after we have done our part to make peace are we to come back and worship. God is not interested in receiving our offerings while there is unresolved anger between us and someone else. He would rather we leave the altar and go repair the relationship.

That is a hard instruction for a culture that would rather sing one more worship song than seek to make amends or to resolve the problems in our difficult relationships. Jesus is saying that our vertical relationship with God also depends on the horizontal relationship with people. If we have the power to make peace with others, we are to do so, before going before God in worship. God doesn’t want us to come before Him with malice in our hearts. When we are able, He wants us to settle our earthly business before we do business with Him.

In Matthew 5:25-26 (NKJV), Jesus tells us that we should agree with our adversary quickly while we are on the way with him, before the matter escalates to a judge, an officer, and a prison cell from which we will not get out until we have paid the last penny. The point here is not a literal courtroom strategy. It is spiritual urgency. Unresolved anger does not stay the same size as when it started. It grows. It pulls other people into it. It costs us peace, and over time it costs us relationships. It can even start to cost us our prayers and our walk with the Lord. The time to deal with it is now, while it is still small enough to deal with.

So, what do we do with this teaching today? We get specific. If there is somebody in our lives right now who has a legitimate grievance against us that we have been too proud or too embarrassed to address, Jesus is saying we go and deal with it.  We need to swallow our pride and make the call, send the text, and ask for forgiveness. And if there is somebody we are angry at without cause, we need to settle it in our own hearts before we carry it any further. Pride and anger separate us from what could be otherwise healthy relationships, but we do not have to let them keep us isolated any longer. If we obey the Lord, our hearts will be free of bitterness and malice, and we can live in peace with others.

So, look at your life and get rid of your strife. We can’t come before the Lord with hate in our hearts. God wants us to love Him and to show His love to others by making peace.  So, as much as it depends on you, step forward to make things right and keep on walking and talking with God.

— M.T.

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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

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