Root of Bitterness*

As I awoke this morning I had a little dream about standing at a vending machine at work. As I was fiddling for a dollar bill, I had a ten and some ones in my hand. The ten-dollar bill dropped to the floor and before I could reach down to pick it up a co-worker reached down and picked it up and handed me a one-dollar bill. I could see the ten in his hand and I said, hey, it was that ten that I dropped not that one you are giving me." He just smiles at me like how are you going to prove it.  As I prayed this morning I asked God to search my heart that no root of bitterness had taken root in my heart because of that dream. I thought is there anything there in my heart somewheres, a root of bitterness? I thought of this house and how I feel deceived, God help me with that. I looked up these scriptures: Ephesians 4:31 "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Hebrews 12:15 "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;" In Ephesians, there was that word forgiven again that I have blogged about recently. My thoughts went back to a time in my life when I did allow a root of bitterness take root. I had grown up in the church. I had learned to tithe as a child. I was legalistic in my thinking. I was appointed as church treasurer when I was in my mid to late twenties. In that position, I saw what others were doing, and they didn't do the same as I had been taught and done since a child. I had never heard any statistics the 80% of Christians don't tithe Biblical. I thought these people are hypocrites. I allowed that to turn into a root of bitterness, what other people were doing. After someone else was appointed treasurer, I simply stopped going to church altogether. I had allowed that root of bitterness not only to take root but to grow. We really do need to live a life of forgiving. If it is a situation like in my dream where someone took my ten dollar bill and gave me a one-dollar bill. If it is a situation like my house where I feel I was defrauded. If it is in a position of responsibility and others do not do what we think is right. We need to guard our own hearts and not allow a root of bitterness to take root. As I have said in earlier blogs, forgiving is not optional, it is an absolute necessity in the lives of every Christian. It is necessary even in the lives of every human being or it will hurt them. To not forgive has been describes as standing there looking at someone who hurt you and you are drinking a glass of poison and expecting that person you are looking at to die. To not forgive only hurts you. Sometimes that other person doesn't even know that they did anything. To forgive needs to be a core value of our lives. To forgive needs to be a absolute value of every Christian. And even prechristians will benefit by developing an attitude of forgiving in their lives. It is like one of those rules of nature, this has to happen or we will not be healthy. It really is that important. God Bless, LVZ.