Bitterness is Spiritual Cancer to Our Wellbeing • Deshen Daily

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice (Ephesians 4:31 KJV)

Bitterness is spiritual in its workings, holistic in its influence and catastrophic in its effects. It erodes our wellbeing as cancer erodes the body. We will briefly review what bitterness is and how it operates in our lives.

In the literal sense of the word, bitterness is the taste we experience when we put something bitter into our mouths. So there are two major aspects of bitterness: the experience (taste) and the trigger (the substance). In the figurative sense, bitterness is a feeling of persistent displeasure, resentment, anger, or hate (the experience) that results when something injures, hurts, or insults us (the trigger). This trigger can be something someone did, said, or just the state in which we find ourselves.

The power of bitterness lies in its spiritual roots. As an injury to the human heart, bitterness affects the heart’s state ( spirit and soul), triggers hostile spiritual powers, and, most importantly, distances us from God while opening our lives to demonic influences. For example, bitterness quenches God’s power and sets us a buffet table for demons to torment an individual. Through these operations, bitterness sheds its bitter taste on every aspect of the person’s life: body, psychological, social, and spiritual.

The cure for bitterness depends on the cause(the trigger), but it almost always involves forgiving someone. And there are three people we often need to forgive: usually someone, many times ourselves and sometimes God depending on the one we assume has offended us. Forgiveness can be hard; that is why in the next verse (Ephesians 4:32), the Lord instructs us to remember how He forgave us first before forgiving others. When we remember His forgiveness for our sins, we receive spiritual strength to forgive others.

Meditate

Is our heart harboring hidden bitterness because of a past injury, insult, or offense?

Apply the Word

Put away bitterness with every strength you can muster. Some of you might be healed instantaneously, be delivered from that demonic oppression, or be the recipient of that breakthrough once you release bitterness from your heart.

Ask the Father to help you remove every trace of bitterness from your heart.