Scripture:
Ephesians 4 v 31-32:
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye
kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ purchased your soul
out of Satan's clutches and absorbed your dead spirit into His body, while dying on a
Cross outside Jerusalem. He took every sin and evil thing and destroyed its
power over humans. We are still inside Him having been forgiven already.
All we need do to make it real is be born again and then
death is gone from us and we become children of the Most High. Its not hard to
do - all it takes is faith in Jesus to
believe He is the Son of God. However, that seems to be beyond some people
today.
They prefer to be cool rebels doing their own thing. Or
part of some dead religion worshipping idols, or simply atheists who don't
believe God exists.
Jesus wants us to lose our ignorance along with anger,
bitterness and evil speaking. He can change us to be more like Him - kind,
tenderhearted and forgiving. When we lose our sinful nature we gain so much
more. We gain goodness, self-control and obedience.
If we refuse to change, we will find that eventually the
bitterness and anger overwhelm us and we do and say things that cause those we
love to reject us. We don't see it coming as it is a spiritual condition to
which we are blinded.
Often we need help to untangle the roots of bitterness
and anger especially when we are in the grip of emotional abuse. We need to understand something about how
evil spirits work to destroy our personalities and lives.
When they have created a climate of emotional pain they
keep adding to it until every memory becomes loaded with bitter thoughts. Until
you forgive from the heart and truly forget you remain a target. Luke 4 v 18 Jesus says I have come to set at
liberty them that are bruised.
He wants to remove the target from our souls that is a
bruise being constantly knocked in our emotions. When He has achieved this we
will start to experience some breathing space in order to grow past the pain
and lose the baggage we have been burdened with for years.
Then our lives can change from bitter and angry to kind
and tenderhearted. We will lose the need to drown our sorrows and end up in a
worse place. We will gain strength from His joy within us.
We will not only forgive others but ourselves too for the
many things we wish we had not done or said. When we forgive ourselves we get
onto the same page with Jesus so that we can love ourselves like He loves us.
We cannot truly love our neighbour until we love ourselves in a Godly way.
Prayer: Father God, only You can bring about change in us
and we need You to do this right now. We struggle to get answers through our
impatience and pride. We humble ourselves to receive Your changes. In Jesus'
name. Amen.