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BITTERNESS DESTROYS YOU AND
YOUR SURROUNDINGS
LET NO BITTER ROOT SHOOT UP.
Always
read the entire section verse refers to
Let no bitter root shoot
up.
Hebrews 12:15 in the Bible. One must be careful that
bitterness or grudge does not arise in the heart, as it can spread to
others and lead to harm
Bitterness makes people feel outside,
rejected. Bitterness leads to envy. Envy leads to hatred,
anger.
Cain killed Abel because of Bitter envy.
Bitter
bitter envy leads to/gives jealousy. Jealousy leads to murder.
How
many have you killed? Frozen out! Turned your back on them, grace
needed you the most! How many times have you thought evil of other
believers in Jesus! Stay in God's love. Test yourself where you are
today?
That's why Paul says. You must root out bitterness.
Bitterness has many faces, it is the root of all evil. If there was
no bitter envy, there would be no peace on earth.
We know
from the Ten Commandments. That we must not covet our neighbor or our
neighbor's house. Yes, we are redeemed from the requirements of the
law, regarding our eternal body and salvation. But as Paul also says.
Shall we remain in sin, so that God's grace may increase?
David
prays in Ps. 1. That God will search him. Search me God... And see if
I am on the path of pain..
In John.16. Jesus says that we
are branches on God's vine and God will prune his vine so that we
bear more fruit.
What is our life at home, in our secret
closet, when we encounter things that appear again and again. Maybe
we have a problem with an unforgiving heart/mind. We cannot
understand why we are not becoming "better" or transformed
into the mirror image of Jesus, as we see in the mirror of the Word.
We cannot understand why we still easily become offended, envious and
angry. We may not understand that other Christians are just as quick
to advance on the narrow path of life and we can see that others have
something we do not have. We actually stand in the way and envy other
Christians, we think they can easily do it, they do not have it as we
do. But we have not lived their lives, we have not been through their
personal humiliations and humiliations.
This is where we,
from time to time, make a mistake. We do not always allow God through
the Holy Spirit to search our house. (Ps.1.). We do not see that we
must be circumcised by humbling ourselves, and even forgiving all our
enemies for their mistakes and injustices that they have committed
against us. We do not see that God is just as quick to confront us
with our innermost being. God wants us to recognize that we are the
guilty ones, that it is ourselves that is mad at him and not everyone
else.
When injustices are committed against us, which
appear again and again as an attack from Satan. And we immediately
begin to quote scriptures in the hope that all these thoughts will
disappear again, we think we have to fight against, as in Eph. 6.
Especially we cling to Rom. 8 if there is no condemnation for us who
are in Christ.
We are like the scribes and the Pharisees,
they thought they were "holy and good enough and they didn't
need to examine themselves.
When praying or quoting
scriptures doesn't help, we think. Yes, but then it's my past that's
crazy. That's probably because. I've been through this and that. And
we think about this is a mental problem, I'd better go to a
psychologist. Because I have to know the cause of my problems so I
can blame those who caused this for my situation. You still don't
see.
That God in his love draws attention to the bitter
root that you have in your mind, which destroys your life and your
surroundings with all the bitter words you say. You then go to a
psychologist and find out the real cause, get it turned around, but
the cause, the pain, is not taken away. You are told you just have to
learn to deal with it, learn to live with it and maybe you get some
medicine that can possibly reduce a a little or numb your brain a
little so that you don't constantly think about all the reasons. This
despite the fact that you say you believe in Jesus and have crucified
the flesh with all its passions and desires, this despite the fact
that you confess and testify. That you are a whole new creature in
Christ Jesus.. This despite the fact that you have buried the old man
(Adam's life) at baptism.
But that is not how God wants us
to live. He says. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus
says. He is the door we must enter through to enter the kingdom of
God. Paul constantly points out that we should live the life of Jesus
Christ in His Spirit and not live in our flesh or resemble the world.
We should not conform to this world. When we are completely stuck in
our lives, after we have tried all kinds of psychologists, talk
therapy, we go to a Christian and ask for a conversation, in the hope
that we will be scratched a little on the back, get some comforting
words, something that gives us justification that what we do is
absolutely right. But we experience just the opposite. We get the
text read.
The Christian says straight out of the bag,
turn around and be the faith of Jesus, do what you preach. You can
experience the Christian says. Bear the fruit of repentance yourself,
which is fruitborn of the Spirit. Start loving your neighbor
yourself. Forgive and you will be forgiven. You stand there thinking,
and you are about to explode. That was not what I needed to hear. He
just stands there judging me, he is supposed to be a Christian, and
then you get angry, angry at your brother or sister, and go home even
more bitter than when you came. You try to keep the mask on while you
are with the others, but inside you are boiling with rage because.
The truth hit the nail on the head. But you still refused to realize.
It was me that was mad at you and not everyone else. When you are
home, the thoughts start to come again. You feel both outside and
rejected, and you turn your anger back towards the past and the
people who, in your own opinion, are to blame for your life and
situation. You do not see that you are on the wrong path. You do not
see what God through his spirit pointed out in your life, He did so
that you would make things right with God and have all things
presented in His light. You have actually ended up in your own
self-righteousness. Where, according to the psychologists'
recommendation, you have started to work on yourself, and blame the
circumstances, the past for your life. And you use these tools
against other Christians. You turn all your problems to be because of
everyone else. So you end up getting tangled up in a whole lot of
contradictory things in relation to what you read about in the Bible
and hear about in church, how a Christian's life should be.
All
because. You chose to go other ways than the narrow path of pain,
comp.1. You opted out of God's pruning of your mind. You opted out of
God having to renew the thoughts of your mind. You chose instead to
go to others, for example psychologists, to have your mind's thoughts
renewed. You would rather talk to others in conversation groups to
turn things around than talk to a Christian and pray with other
Christians. You would not humble yourself and openly admit that you
were not at all as good/pious as you pretended to be. You wouldn't
want to lose face like that in front of other Christians. All
because. You wouldn't want to let yourself be pruned and allow God in
Jesus to remove the bitter root from the bottom. Deep down, you
didn't want to have your mind renewed anyway because then everyone
can just step on you, then you can't even defend yourself anymore,
then everyone can see me for who I really am. No, I now choose to
keep the facade and keep my own fig leaves close around me (just like
Adam and Eve did, to hide from God) so that no one can see what I
really contain.
Many believe it must be possible to work
on yourself so much that you eventually get to the point where the
bitter memories of your past disappear and you become a good
Christian. This despite what we all know. No one is good in
themselves, no one is righteous in themselves. We are dead, crucified
with the Lord Jesus so that he can live in our place.
Or are not
all Christians dead with Christ?
Isaiah. Said in recognition,
Help I am a man with unclean lips. The impurity that comes out of the
mouth comes from unclean thoughts, unclean thoughts come from an
unclean mind. Unclean actions come from an unclean mind that has not
been renewed by God. Sour bitter fruits come from a branch that
refused to be pruned by God, when He came by His Holy Spirit and
pointed out things that you had actually forgotten. As Jesus says.
Can you pick grapes from thorns? You will always be who you are until
you turn around and let God prune you, like the branch you are on the
vine. A branch on a tree cannot pick up a secateur and start pruning
itself, someone must come from outside and do it.
Are you
willing to let yourself be pruned by the secateur, possibly another
Christian you don't really like, that God sends to you? And then do
what God tells you, by walking in God's Light? Do you believe God is
right in what He says to you? Do you allow God's Word to search your
mind? Or do you do what so many others do, flee when you are hit by
the truth? Many use it when they are hit by the truth, they rush to
put on some music, they rush to turn on the TV, or go for a walk, or
fool their conscience with something or other, all the same to get
their thoughts to think about something other than what they were hit
by.
If we all want to move forward on the Way of Jesus
Christ, live in His Truth, be one in His whole life. Then we must
allow God to prune us from everything of our own. Including the
bitter root that often only has the top cut off, without the whole
root being taken up. And it costs you everything if you want that
Way. You are humiliated, you are treated badly by others, you are
hurt, you are stepped on. You come across everything that used to
make you angry, you also encounter some of what used to make you
afraid, insecure. But then you see it in the different situations.
Yes, but before I would react like this, now it doesn't affect me, or
I do this instead and you see God's pruning knife has done good for
you.
Jesus says. We must come to Him and follow Him. He
does not force us tofollow Him. He offers us that we may freely come
to Him and follow Him. God's will is that we believe in the Son
Jesus, that we live together with God in the Son, by following Jesus,
guided to that by the Holy Spirit, whom God gave us as a pledge of
our eternal life. He whom the Son frees, including by God's pruning
of you as a branch on the vine, must be truly free. Namely,
completely free from himself and the will of his own mind, thoughts,
and life.
Jesus voluntarily chose God's life. He was not
forced into anything by God the Father. God does not force us, either
to believe in Jesus or to serve Him. We are created in the image of
God with our free will, just as Jesus is. However, what we choose to
believe in and do has eternal consequences for us. As we sow, we
reap. If we sow in the Spirit, by living/walking in the Spirit with
Jesus, we will receive Spiritual fruit, which among other things: Is
gentleness, long-suffering, meekness/humility, wisdom and love,
acceptance and forgiveness. And we get all the other Spiritual fruits
in addition. The fruits that God has produced according to the will
of his Spirit on the different branches, in the form of the services
of the different gifts of grace. Jesus says it so well. What is sown
in the flesh is sown in the flesh. We do not receive any reward for
the works of the flesh. We only receive reward for the works that God
was allowed to do by his Spirit. Here many build with hay and straw
that are burned up. They do not let themselves be guided by the
Spirit of God. For example, they refuse to be pruned and they will
not even hear of being transplanted. Sometimes a Christian has to be
repotted just like a flower that has been standing in sour, exhausted
soil.
Bitter roots create discord and make many leave the
congregations they were placed in, they were offended, so bitter this
with first rivets envy which created a bitter hatred.
What
do you choose? What you personally choose becomes your life.
SOUND
