Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
--Psalm 139:23-24
Yesterday, we looked at one reason we should dig the root of bitterness out of our lives; bitterness chains us to the past.
Another reason we should remove bitterness from our lives is it contaminates our personalities. Bitterness will make you negative, hard, brittle, critical, and caustic. I don’t know about you, but I never want those things to be how people describe me!
But bitterness isn’t happy with just affecting you. It spills out on to others. Which is why we have so many families torn apart because of bitterness, resentment, and unresolved conflict in the home.
It’s why so many churches have been divided and destroyed…and why so many businesses have been soured and their effectiveness destroyed. Bitterness can’t help but contaminate everyone and everything it touches!
If you’re struggling with bitterness today…if you have yet to deal with it…then I urge you to do so just as quickly as possible.
It’s time to take those feelings to the Lord Jesus. As you do, use today’s verse as your prayer to ask God to show you the way forward.
Bitterness can’t help but contaminate everyone and everything it touches.
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.”
Luke 17:22–24
The timing of the first coming of Jesus was laid out in detail by the prophet Daniel. The decree by the Persian ruler Cyrus to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem started the clock ticking, and Jesus entered Jerusalem on what we commonly call Palm Sunday right on the schedule God had revealed to the prophet hundreds of years before. The return of Jesus is just as certain and sure as His first coming, but we are not given a time line for this event. Instead we are commanded to be ready for Him to return at any moment so that we will not be ashamed.
John Henry Jowett wrote, “Said a mother to me one day concerning her long-absent boy: ‘I lay a place for him at every meal! His seat is always ready!’ May I not do this for my Lord? May I not make a place for Him in all my affairs—my choices, my pleasures, my times of business, my season of rest? He may come just now; let His place be ready!”
Those who are eagerly anticipating the return of Jesus will receive a special reward from Him when He appears. “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
Today’s Growth Principle:
Every day should be lived with both an awareness that Jesus could return and a longing in our hearts that it will be today.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment