Roots of bitterness often remain buried only occasionally surfacing to prick our awareness with painful memories. For me this bitterness would trigger emotions from my own abuse as well as the painful emotions that stemmed from my children's abuse. I would then take the pain and inflect it upon myself because in my mind, I deserved it.
As you will learn today, The Root of Bitterness needs to go and we need to forgive and Heal so that we can receive the Love of Abba Yah and His Holiness in our Lives so that our Light is not dim and we can Fully House The Lord God Almighty in ourselves.
Forgiveness = Unconditional Love and that is the point of this study.
1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1John 4:11:21 ESV
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
What is Already done in the Spiritual realms Always has to manifest in the physical.
Bitterness-G4088-πικρίαpikría, pik-ree'-ah; from G4089; acridity (especially poison), literally or figuratively:—bitterness.
Bitterness is Poison. It is a root that festers whenever trials, or hardships arise. Bitterness is a poison that pushes us to do things we regret. Bitterness is a poison that has no room in our Souls.
Biblical Outline of Usage
bitter gall
extreme wickedness
a bitter root, and so producing a bitter fruit
metaph. bitterness, bitter hatred
7 Bitter Fruits of Sin (I will talk about 4)
Deception: Every sort of Evil that Deceives: Going All the way back to the Garden of Eden and the Fall
2 Thessalonians 2:10
and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
*Deception-G539:ἀπάτηapátē, ap-at'-ay; from G538; delusion:—deceit(-ful, -fulness), deceivableness(-ving).
*G538-ἀπατάωapatáō, ap-at-ah'-o; of uncertain derivation; to cheat, i.e. delude:—deceive.
2. Perishing: By nature we are perishing
*G622-ἀπόλλυμιapóllymi, ap-ol'-loo-mee; from G575 and the base of G3639; to destroy fully (reflexively, to perish, or lose), literally or figuratively:—destroy, die, lose, mar, perish.
Biblical Outline of Usage of G622
to destroy
to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin
render useless
to kill
to declare that one must be put to death
metaph. to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell
to perish, to be lost, ruined, destroyed
to destroy
to lose
3. Refusal to Love the Truth: These people heard the truth and they refused to believe it. But the real issue here is that they refused to love it. The heart governs the life more than the head. The greatest barrier to faith lies not in the doubts of the mind but in the desires of the heart.
4. Delight in Wickedness
2Thessalonians 2:12- in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
*Unrighteousness-G93-ἀδικίαadikía, ad-ee-kee'-ah; from G94; (legal) injustice (properly, the quality, by implication, the act); morally, wrongfulness (of character, life or act):—iniquity, unjust,
unrighteousness, wrong.
Biblical Outline of Usage of G93
injustice, of a judge
unrighteousness of heart and life
a deed violating law and justice, act of unrighteousness
The Root of Bitterness becomes a characteristic in our personality. It is a plague on our character as it causes us to do things that we normally wouldn't do. Bitterness is intensely and personal and each heart knows its own bitterness:
Proverbs 14:10
The heart knows its own bitterness,and no stranger shares its joy.
Have you in any way tended to ignore your own roots of bitterness hoping that they would go away if left alone or fearing that resolving them would be to difficult?
For me until this study I didn't understand that I had such a deep root of bitterness within me. Bitterness caused me to:
Run people away
I did things I regret
I use to yell and scream for no reason. I held onto the past and that feed my bitterness when times got hard. I was angry that nobody helped me with my daughters. I was always told to "figure it out yourself"
In my early 20s I drank to much at times that I would black out and wake up at home not knowing how I got there
I would indulge in risky behavior. I would think- "I am already in pain so why not do something that I will feel guilty about later." This fed the root of Bitterness. It was normally going out and finding a man who would sexually please me. Only to leave feeling dirty and disgusting. I cried each and every time.
Never having stable income because I had to be available when my daughters were in crisis mode, or when I had to go to court every week when I found out the woman in their dad's life was beating them.
Keeping a hold of the Victim Mentality
Bitterness Grows in our Hearts when we don't Lose Our Faith in Abba Yah. Is there a time in your life where you didn't trust The Lord God Almighty? There has been several events that have taken away or challenged my faith:
I was sexually abused from the time I can remember. I was raped by two grown men at the age of 15. One being my step-uncle.
I was divorced at 21 with 3 daughters. My ex-husband while I was at work cleaned my house out and took my children. He told me I could see them on my days off when he said. He filed for divorce the next day. I learned he had a girlfriend because she came to my job and told me.
My daughters were molested and sodomized in 2010. I literally lost my mind and was sent into the wilderness. I was homeless at times, I lived with people who stole from me.
I learned that the woman the girls dad was with beat them in 2012 for sending her father to prison. He received 2 counts child molestation and 2 counts sodomy.
I was in and out of abusive relationships. Physically, mentally, financially, emotionally... I gave 6 years off and on to a man who took my hearing away from me in 2013. He had me convinced I deserved to be beaten...
Lost good jobs because I was the only one who could help my daughters not become the women I took care of in the psych facility I was sent to in 2011.
I was sent into the wilderness for 8 months. In those 8 months I saw my daughters 4 times. I learned that they were being beaten by the woman their father was with. During my wilderness time, I was Angry at God. I was Angry at myself, for not preventing what had happened to them and for not taking them with me when God told me to go. God showed me if I didn't get my daughters help and if I didn't start trusting in Him that my worse fears would come true. Some women I cared for could no longer be apart of society. They had been beaten so bad they had brain damage and or they had taken so much drugs they were no longer functioning. I had to see this in order to trust Him and to know He kept me protected from myself as well.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:25-32 that we must uproot Bitterness and anger otherwise we will never heal or allow Abba Yah to live 100% within us. For if we still harbor darkness, the Light The Lord God Almighty calls us to be is dim and it's like hiding our Light under a bushel, a bushel of bitterness.
Ephesians 4:25-32 ESV
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,27 and give no opportunity to the devil.28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
What does Paul say we must do in order to get rid of the Root of Bitterness?
Put Away All lying and Speak Truth
Be angry but do Not Sin
Do Not Let the sun go down on your wrath
Do Not Give satan Room
Do Not Steal but do honest work
No Corrupt communication but Minister Grace ( Grace = Divine Intervention. When we Speak we should do so that our Light Shines with our words)
We are Not to Grieve the Holy Spirit ( We are Sealed by the Holy Spirit when we gave ourselves over to The Lord God Almighty and confessed that Yahusha/Jesus died for our sins. The Holy Spirit Now Lives within Us)
Put away: All evil, bitterness, wrath, anger, and malice
Be Kind, tenderhearted and forgiving
My bitterness I held onto festered when I quit my job at Mercy after turning them in because they were not following CDC guidelines on lock down mental units. That bitterness grew into rage and anger. I wanted to escape and I did with someone God used to teach me that there was still work within myself to be done.
I never knew what was causing me to act the way I did when things got hard, I never understood why I would do the things I did when I felt alone and abandoned. But I do now, and if you are struggling, please take a look at yourself and see if there is a root of bitterness within you too. I promise the work is Worth it and you will heal in many ways I can't put into words.
For More on the 7 Bitter Fruits of Sin
