THE HORRIBLE EFFECTS OF BITTERNESS!
Lesson Two
Bitterness willHinder Your Relationship with the Lord and Your Service for Him!
God inhabits praise not criticism and resentment. Murmuring about others to others and God can’t and won’t promote unity and the Spirit’s fullness in your life. This is exactly the goal of Satan, he knows we are saved and declared righteous in Christ, so he works to deter, deceive, and tries to move us from effectiveness to ineffectiveness. If we harbor his negative and destructive thoughts, listening to his debilitating doubts, or entertaining his faith-weakening fears, that is a partial surrender to the Enemy.--And any surrender to the Devil is always going to cause you trouble!
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him."--Heb.11:6. If we don't accept the things that the Lord sends into your life, if we not only doubt and wonder about His treatment and care of you, but actually murmur and resent and rebel against it, that's certainly not faith, and surely displeases the Lord! And if we allow that root of bitterness to take hold in our heart and life, it will cause us to fail both the Lord and ourselves. Such a root can go a Hell of a long way, and can ultimately destroy our ministry, and harm the entire Work of God that we are supposed to be helping. It is impossible to paint ugliness into the life of another while asking Jesus to paint beauty in this world through our own lives.
The way that bitterness can hinder your ministry and effectiveness is illustrated in the following true story about the great artist and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci: Just before he commenced work on his famous painting of "The Last Supper" he had a violent quarrel with a fellow painter. He was so enraged and bitter that he decided to paint the face of his enemy, the other artist, into the face of Judas, and thus take his revenge by handing the man down in infamy and scorn to succeeding generations. The face of Judas was therefore one of the first that he finished, and everyone could easily recognize it as the face of the painter with whom da Vinci had quarreled.
But when he came to paint the face of Jesus, he could make no progress. Something seemed to be baffling him, holding him back, frustrating his best efforts. At length he came to the conclusion that the thing that was checking and frustrating him was the fact that he had painted his enemy into the face of Judas. He therefore painted out the face of Judas and commenced anew on the face of Jesus, and this time with the success which the ages have acclaimed.
How clearly this incident shows us that we cannot at one and the same time be painting the features of Christ into our own life, and be painting another face with the colors of enmity and hatred. To become more Christ-like, and to accomplish what the Lord wants you to do, surely all bitterness and hatred must be "put away" and "laid aside."
Life application questions:
How can people believe they can be wrong horizontally and right vertically? Why do wrong relations here seem to impact our proximity to God? What is the proper attitude one should have when trials come into our lives, especially when they come through other believers that may have hurt us?
Bitterness Opens the Door to the Enemy!
C. Bitterness Will Even Affect You Physically!
This is why the Lord tells us, "Neither give place to the Devil!"--Eph.4:27. This verse shows that you can sometimes give the Devil place and room to operate and get in. Satan will use whatever you let him get ahold of, so you'd better resist and give him no place!--So beware of letting the Enemy in through the little seeds and tiny roots of jealousy, murmuring or bitterness that he may try to sow in your heart!
Life Application questions:
To what extent can a Christian gives place to the devil? Eph.4
Bitterness Will Even Affect You Physically!
The affairs of the heart and affairs of the spirit can affect you physically! There are all kinds of little roots of bitterness, resentment, jealousy, hurt feelings, and they will all begin to eat on you from within, if you let them.--Until pretty soon they will crop out in very obvious or even physical manifestations.
People who are bitter and have a lot of hatred in their hearts, have much more physical problems. People who have a lot of fear in their minds--worries, tension, and such the like of negative attitudes have a lot more mental trouble and more stomach trouble, as well as more heart trouble.
Thank God that the elimination of fear by faith gives peace of mind and rest to your stomach and to your heart, and actually eliminates various poisons from the blood which cause illness. In other words, your state of mind and heart can actually poison your body. Science knows this and has proven it true.
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You; because he trusts in You.
Life Application questions:
Give some illustrations as to how strong feelings can make a person ill.
How do you think it is possible for stress, hate, anger to affect the body?
Bitterness Will Hurt and "Defile" Many Others!
People who are discontent, murmuring, resentful and critical are usually never satisfied unless they can persuade others of their own opinion. It’s easy to see when one takes a look at what certain Christians write on Facebook. Embittered people love Facebook. Christianese is mastered to carefully disguise the bitterness with a false righteousness. Misery loves company, and they love to huntfor other people agree with them which is terribly easy to do, unfortunately. Complaining, murmuring and criticizing comes easy to the flesh and it is easy to fall under the power of it. But from God's point of view, it is a sin that is absolutely intolerable. Just read the story of the wandering Children of Israel and you'll see how He let millions of people rot in the Sinai Desert for their murmuring and their complaining, and they never got into the Promised Land! (Num.32:11-13.)
Bitterness and murmuring are a very infectious spiritual disease, and can spread and poison others very quickly if left unchecked. Because I have a garden I have discovered how quickly rot runs through good vegetables when a rotten veggie or fruit is placed within the good. The Bible warns us through the illustration of yeast quickly impacting dough to the point of complete contamination, "Know ye not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump!"--1Cor. 5:6,7. Just like a tiny pinch of yeast will spread throughout an entire "lump" of dough and cause the whole thing to rise, people who are permeated with bitterness are a real burden and a real downer influence, and will drag everybody down that they can, pulling everybody's spirits down. They're always dwelling on the negative and always criticizing and always murmuring.
Life Application questions:
Do you find yourself finding ways to criticize others through Christianese smokescreens? Is there the slightest root of bitterness in you the presents itself to others so they will look upon someone else in a negative light? Have you ever considered the destruction and contagious attributes of bitterness?
Next lesson
WHY DO PEOPLE BECOME BITTER?