Change Your Ways

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:
 32  And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God forgave you."

Ephesians 2 v 4 - 6: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
 5  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 
 6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:"


Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ purchased our souls out of Satan's clutches and absorbed them 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.  Or following philosophy or the doctrines of men who are exalted above the Word of God.  Colossians 2 v 8: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

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.  2 Corinthians 4 v 3 - 4: "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
 4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

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.