Let’s lay the ground of today’s conversation with the scripture:
Eph. 4:31-32
31.) Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.
32.) And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Let’s look at what Bitterness means?
Bitterness is resentful negativity that results in an intense hostility toward others. Bitterness is that state of mind, that willfully holds on to angry feelings, ready to take offense at any slightest provocation, with readiness to burst out in anger at any moment.
Bitterness is a spirit that refuses to forgive and rejects reconciliation. Bitterness leads to uncontrolled rage (madness), which is the explosion on the outside of the feelings on the inside.
Bitterness occurs when we feel someone has taken something from us that we are powerless to get back. Or when we feel someone has done something to hurt us that we are powerless to retaliate or hit back. We hold on to the hurt in an attempt to remind ourselves and others of the injustice we’ve experienced in the hopes that someone will give us justice. Unfortunately, bitterness only makes our sense of injustice grow. It does nothing to heal the wound caused by the injustice. In fact, it causes the wound to become infected with anger.
We’ll be looking at the characteristics, the causes, the consequences, and the cure for bitterness.
What are the Characteristics of Bitterness (signs that you have bitterness in your heart):
1. You feel anger in you every time you hear a particular person’s name.
2. You replay a conversation or experience over and over in your mind
3. You’re happy when a particular person fails. You are quick to call it karma to exonerate yourself, celebrating other people’s misfortune is evil and it is sinful. It shows that you are harboring bitterness in your hearts.
4. You feel the need to slander someone to other people. All you just want to do is to defame the character of the person, making a falsely spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation. You know you cannot get back at the person in a tangible way, so you hurt them indirectly behind their back through slander.
For instance, someone comes to report your spouse to you and your response is “Now you understand what I am going through at home. That is the way he does”. If you do, it is a red flag that you’re holding on to bitterness.
The Bible says in Eph. 4:31 – Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice (Slander is speaking evil against someone)
5. You complain often.
Now let’s look the Causes of Bitterness
Bitterness is often caused by unmet expectations, unfulfilled promises, feeling of unfair treatment, etc. And that leads to unresolved anger and unforgiveness.
In Deut. 29:18 – So that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood.
So, the heart is turned away from God, not only when you commit fornication, adultery, tell a lie, etc. but also when you nurture bitterness.
What are the consequences of bitterness?
- Bitterness will devastate you spiritually:
Bitterness necessitates that you walk in the flesh, and not in the Spirit.
All Christians have that choice every day, many times a day, to take a step in the flesh or to take a step in the Spirit. We can’t control what happens in life, but we can control how we respond or react to situations of life
Gal. 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith…
These are the very things you hold back from the person you are hold bitterness against. God does not work with those that harbor bitterness in their heart. A heart filled with bitterness will always fall short of God’s grace.
- Bitterness will destroy you mentally:
The more we hold onto past pain, the more we become drunk on our pain and the experience can rob us of the joy we can find in anything. A Psychiatrist once wrote, “90% of all people in insane asylums could be released immediately if they would learn how to forgive, or how to be forgiven.” Bitterness is POISON!
- Bitterness will Discourage you emotionally:
Where there’s bitterness, there’s discouragement.
You start to develop a victim’s mentality. You begin to feel everyone’s out to get you. You suddenly feel you are the target of everyone.
- Bitterness will destroy your relationships:
There is a spillover effect with bitterness. You don’t have to be bitter toward your spouse to ruin your marriage. You can be bitter toward your parents and ruin your marriage! You can be bitter towards your spouse and destroy the precious relationship with your children!
You can be bitter towards your sibling and ruin your relationship with your parents – just because of the spill-over effect. (Gen 27 is a typical example of Jacob and Esau)
Finally, let’s look at the cure for bitterness:
- Look carefully:
You cannot control bitter experiences that will come your way, but you can monitor your heart’s condition and humbly recognize if bitterness has taken root.
Your recognition and awareness of it is your first step to the healing process.
To be cured from bitterness, you must do your part by admitting that you have it and taking it to God in prayer.
- Embrace the grace of God:
Through the grace of God, you can be offended and not feel offended. To embrace the grace of God is to empty your heart of every bitterness so the grace of God can fill your heart. When you are still allowing bitterness to fill your heart, you will not have room for the grace of God to fill your heart.
The grace of God will make it possible for you to forgive permanently, and unconditionally.
In the book of Rom.12:2…be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Always remember that through prayer and daily devotion to the word of God, your mind will be renewed and transformed.
Prayer: Lord Jesus uproot the root of bitterness in me completely, in the name of Jesus.
