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."
Hebrews 12 v 14 - 16: "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright."
Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ purchased our spirits 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. The wages of sin is death, we were born in sin, therefore these sins were committed before we were in the womb.
We are still inside Him having been forgiven already.
All we need do to make this forgiveness 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.
Paul says we must follow peace and holiness with all people, otherwise we will not see Jesus. If we refuse to make adjustments to our negative attitude, 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."
It is the god of this world, aka Satan, The Deceiver, Father of Lies, the Great Red Dragon, who blinds the minds of his subjects, sinners, to the truth about Jesus. He hates being exposed because he has successfully convinced the world that he and his demons are myths.
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 the demons have created a climate of fear and emotional pain they keep adding to it until every memory becomes loaded with bitter thoughts. They have an agenda for every human. It is to destroy this personality....through addictions, sexual abuse, emotional and physical abuse, crime, bitterness, hate, racial hate, rejection, disease, idolatry, loss and death.
It is demons in people that cause all the above evils to happen. Often the person committing murder has no recall of it, insists he is innocent. That's because a demon of murder - a false spirit - overwhelmed him and caused him to kill, then departed leaving him with a smoking gun in his hand. He had motive, opportunity and no alibi. Guilty as charged?
Serial killers get a huge rush when they kill. They get addicted to this rush, like heroin. The rush is the demon within them and until they come to Jesus for forgiveness they cannot get rid of it. Even then they need deliverance prayer and an attitude adjustment.
One of the greatest testimonies I have ever heard is from Afshin Javid an Iranian Hezbollah terrorist who was deeply devoted to Allah. He was dying in prison in Malaysia, an evil spirit (his words) was choking him to death. All his cries to Allah had not helped. He heard an audible voice saying "Call on Jesus" and he said in his last breath, Jesus if you are real show yourself. Instantly the demon left and he was fine.
His dilemma was why Jesus, not Allah? After fasting and reading Koran for two weeks, no answer so in anger he threw it away. Immediately a being of light appeared next to him. In panic he crawled into a corner. He felt a touch on his shoulder and total forgiveness of every sin. He cried Who are you? And heard I am the way, the truth and the Life. He said What is your name. I am Jesus! Afshin wept for two hours and Jesus then spoke to him for a long time. He is a pastor for the last thirty years but weeps whenever he shares this testimony.
Jesus said we are born again when we believe and are baptized. It is the only way to be free of subjection to Satan. We must then work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. We need ministry, prayer and the gifts of the Holy Spirit to do this effectively. He has raised up Afshin to do this mighty work under constant threat of death from other Moslems, even his father. He had the complete attitude adjustment and reason to follow Jesus.
Until you forgive from the heart and truly forget you remain a target. So that's the first attitude adjustment to be accomplished because God says unless you forgive, I will not forgive you! He responds to us doing it first. Mark 11 v 25 - 26: "And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." Words of Jesus!
He wants to set at liberty them that are bruised. This is not a physical bruise but a spiritual one. Deep hurts, constantly being buffeted by Satan, to keep us bound in negative attitudes.
Luke 4 v 18: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,"
Jesus wants to remove the target from our souls that is this deep 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. It needs prayer and ministry.
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. When the evil roots have been destroyed then we will see change.
There are many Christians, including prophets, apostles, teachers, evangelists, and pastors who need an attitude adjustment. Many church members have been hurt by judgmental ministers who have lost their first love for Jesus and who look for rewards. Many prophets have uttered lies or made up things to impress the crowds bring hurt and confusion. There are many false doctrines being preached and when confronted the pastor will respond, You may not touch the Lord's anointed! The Lord will deal with them,until or unless they change.
Roots refers to generational afflictions or attitudes that are demonically visited upon us from previous generations. Like family feuds or a family history of a recurring disease. To get rid of evil fruit growing in our souls we have to destroy these roots. Then the whole tree dies and we are set free.
We must 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: Heavenly Father, only You can bring about these attitude adjustments and we need You to do this right now. Lead Us to the place where we can receive the help we need. We struggle to get answers through our impatience and pride. We humble ourselves to receive Your changes. In Jesus' name. Amen.