Eliminate the Root of Bitterness

Hebrews 12:15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
It says here we need to be careful about roots of bitterness in our life. A root of bitterness comes when somebody offends, us somebody hurts us or lies about us, and we judge them and a root of bitterness gets in the heart.
I find this is very common in families when a father or mother wounds you or hurts you or a person in your family wounds you. It’s very easy to judge that person. When we judge we set up a root of bitterness and what that does is ‘we defile many’.

How does this work? The very qualities that you hated in that person starts to be reproduced in you. Why? Your soul is like a camera. Unfortunately a camera reproduces an image of whatever it’s focused on. Anybody that’s ever been on a diet knows that the more you say all the things you’re not going to eat: ‘I’m not going to eat chocolate ice cream.’ ‘I’m not going to eat a big steak for dinner.’ All the things you say you’re not going to eat your mind focuses on and gives power to those things. They become stronger and stronger and stronger temptations in your life. So whatever we focus on we tend to reproduce that’s just how the soul, mind, will and emotions work.

So when you allow bitterness to come in your heart you judge somebody. You create an emotional focus on the qualities you hated in that person. The consequence of that is that you have a great tendency to reproduce in your own life or potentially in the life of a person you would marry the very qualities that you hated in your father or mother.
How many times have we heard somebody who’s been married 20 years, who had vowed in their heart, ‘I’ll never be like my father’, and their wife will say: ‘You’re just like your father…’ This is the principle of negative reproduction that by which ‘we defile many’. The vow of the heart will enable the ‘negative’ cycle to repeat (eg. Adultery, alcoholism, divorce, depression etc.)

You can’t afford to allow bitterness to come in your heart. If someone has offended you. Somebody at work or somebody in your congregation where you go to church or somebody has offended you in your family. It’s critical to come to the LORD and forgive them let the blood of Jesus be enough to pay for what that person has done. So would you just ask the LORD even right now: “Father is there somebody who’s offended me that I’m bitter towards? Somebody who stole from me, somebody who cheated me?... and I’m struggling with bitterness.”
If God brought somebody to your mind would you just speak a prayer of forgiveness?

Author: Craig Hill
Organization: Family Foundations International
WEBSITE: http://craighill.org/