The Root of Bitterness

by Rocky Fleming

Day 4: The Recovery

When the battle against the root of bitterness is seriously waged in our life, there will be a joy and freedom in our life that is eventually found.  We will be set free from a burden that grips us and robs us of so many things that God wants to give us.  A root of bitterness destroys our spiritual health and studies show that it also destroys our mental and physical health, not to mention interpersonal relationships.  Because of this newfound joy and freedom, it will be real easy to become centered on those new benefits to our own life.  But there is work still to be done.  

We must now become a voice of repentance, humility and healing to those people whom our poison has influenced by the fruit of our bitterness.  If not, the fruit of bitterness in their life, which was outsourced from our bitterness, will continue to reproduce even though we are no longer in the equation.  It is revealing in the scripture below that Jesus places a responsibility on His disciple to be proactive in our effort to right wrongs and become part of someone’s healing if we have offended that person.  We are not to wait, but to go and do so posthaste.  Read for yourself:

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  Matthew 5: 23-24 (ESV)

Jesus is big on healthy relationships beginning with Him, and us with each other.  He compels us to move closer and deeper into our relationship with Him, and He shows us how a root of bitterness disrupts our fellowship with Him and hinders that journey.  For our own good and for the good of our relationship with Him, bitterness must be cast out of our life.  Then we come to understand how destructive it was by experiencing the benefits of it being gone.  But Jesus is also big on our healthy relationships with other people.  We may have found freedom for our self, but there are victims of our bitterness who have not found this.  That is why He gives us a mission to clean up our mess, for it is part of our own recovery.  If we do not humbly embrace this responsibility, we will continue to experience limitations to our own recovery, and our fruit of bitterness in that person continues on. 

I have discovered that humility and repentance are also  freedom-givers.  I think a lot of men tie their masculinity to being strong and tough.  Humility and repentance don't sound like being strong and tough.  We get tied up in this misunderstanding.  I used to think this until I really got to know Jesus.  I came to understand by His life and what He faced while in this world that He had the whole deck stacked against Him, and He could not have faced down all the adversity that came at Him without being strong and tough.  In fact, He is the strongest and toughest Man that I have ever known, and yet He is also the most humble and kind person I know.  

He shows me that true biblical manhood is to be right with Him, to be obedient to Him no matter the cost to me, and to live my faith out.  It takes courage and self-denial to do this.  When He tells me to do something, I know that it is for my own good and for a purpose greater than I can see or know.  I know He is for me and with me, and this makes me understand that my mission to help someone else to find the freedom He has given to me is right for the other person and myself, for in this I find the freedom I need.  Will you embrace your freedom and reach out to heal a broken or wounded relationship?