Root of bitterness

Heb 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

Remember yesterday we talked about looking diligently.  We discussed how it takes EFFORT to look diligently. We discussed how important it is for us to truly be diligent about our spiritual walk with Christ.  We can't take our spiritual walk lightly!  We can't, we truly can't.  Or rather, we can but only to our own detriment, our eternal detriment.

Maybe these studies are my attempt to feed my Spiritual self, and maybe you'll use them to help you feed spiritually too, but ONLY through the Holy Spirit guiding us and opening our hearts and minds to all truth.

We need to dig deep for full comprehension.  We are told to 'look diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God' . We are told to look diligently 'lest any root of bitterness spring up trouble you.'

Root of bitterness.

Deu 29:18  Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood

A root that beareth gall and wormwood.

A poisonous root, a bitter root.

A root of bitterness, a poisonous root, something that destroys, something that kills.  Anything that would kill us spiritually must be avoided, not embraced, not ignored, not wished away but seriously avoided. Too often we allow ourselves to overlook evil, right?

We have to be able to discern between good and evil this is what growing up into Christ is all about, discerning, and that discernment through the grace of Christ, through the power of Christ allowing us to choose good over evil.

Roots of bitterness spring up-troubling us-and then defiling us.

Roots of bitterness poisoning us, killing us.

We have to look diligently LEST we are poisoned!

What sort of poison? What are the roots of bitterness?

After reading Deuteronomy 29:18 it's clear that turning our hearts from the LORD our God is a root of bitterness and serving false gods is a root of bitterness.

We turn our hearts from the LORD our God whenever we disobey Him, don't we? When we embrace and welcome sin we are turning our hearts from God. We have to call evil - evil and good - good. We can't allow ourselves to be deceived!

Look at your life, look at it and try to see any evil in it you might be clinging to, evil that you've grown accustomed to.   We must look and look diligently, if we don't… we will fail of the grace of God.

What are the roots of bitterness surrounding us? What are they? Are they there? Is there anything that would keep us from our Savior? Anything?  Is there anything we put in the place of our Savior?  We must ask ourselves these questions and get honest answers because if we don't we are purposely allowing ourselves to be blind. 

Please LORD help us! Give us the discernment we need! We don't want any roots of bitterness to spring up and trouble us, defile us.  Please LORD save us from ourselves!  Please.

All by YOUR GRACE, YOUR LOVE!

Pick up your spiritual fork

Shall we feast some more…. pick up your spiritual forks and knives and dig in. By the grace of our Lord we will be well fed.

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:
Heb 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God...

Looking DILIGENTLY.

If I tell you to look diligently what exactly am I telling you to do?

Dictionary definition-

dil·i·gent  (dnt)
adj.

Marked by persevering, painstaking effort.

Pasted from

Did you read that?  Looking with effort painstakingly, persevering! 

Does that mean you should do this half-heartedly? Does it mean you should put very little effort into this?  I'm just trying to get the REAL meaning here, not the one we gloss over as we read Bible verses and nod and smile to ourselves telling ourselves they're nice verses and then we go away having not been fed by them at all.  It's true! We read but we are not EATING.  Or we are eating but we are NOT digesting!  We don't even know what we are putting into our spiritual mouths beyond that it's spiritual food. We think gulping it down, swallowing without tasting, eating it as if it is just empty spiritual calories holding no sustenance whatsoever that we are spiritually feasting but we are not!  So what if you've filled your spiritual belly to the fullest if you've not taken the time to savor and truly taste each and every bit of the spiritual food you are feeding on.  It does no good to read the entire Bible and learn nothing from it, no good at all. The words can go in and just as soon as they've gone in they can disappear as well and in the next moment you remember nothing.

We need to look diligently!  Our effort has to be painstaking and persevering! 

Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God

We need to look diligently as we are following PEACE with all men, because if we don't we may FAIL of the grace of God!

People hear the words - grace of God and believe that no matter what it's theirs.  If that's true how can this statement be truth as well? How can anyone fail of the grace of God?

You can fail of it, you really can and this is truly FOOD for thought, isn't it?

Again, I have to mention that spiritual food isn't sweet honey and chocolate, it can be castor oil and hot sauce.  It's not going to go down smoothly all the time, it's meant to open our spiritual eyes so we can discern good and evil and that isn't something that is pleasant. It is especially not pleasant for us when our eyes are opened to see that some cherished behavior we have is really an evil behavior. Remember, we like to call evil good and good evil, but our eyes will be opened by the Holy Spirit if we choose to believe and have faith in God for ALL things.  When we eat the bitter food and realize we are standing on sinking sand we are meant to realize that we must cling to Christ for our salvation. We must repent of that evil we've been allowed to see, and repent daily if need be, seeking forgiveness.  The repentance has to be a real repentance though, not some habit we've formed admitting to our wrongs but truly not intending to make any effort to stop them. 

If we are impatient by nature we must repent of that nature and seek to cultivate patience all with Christ's help. If we are shown our impatience over and over, day by day, we must each and every time feel the remorse it calls for- not just shrug it off, not just give up, not when the chastisement is the spiritual fire purifying us.  Remember this--

Heb_12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

We aren't supposed to enjoy being chastised, but we are supposed to realize that we are being taught. We are being shown. We are being guided. 

Children often rebel against chastisement. Adults who are chastised have a better chance to learn from it than a child.  Still, adults can take offense when they are chastised and they too can rebel against it, but they have more maturity to look for the reason for the chastisement, looking beyond the initial emotional injury of being chastised.  Remember, it's not pleasant now but it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness.  Get that, PEACEABLE fruit of righteousness and we are to what… follow peace with all men.  If we are exercised by the chastisement, if we learn from it we have hope.  We can choose not to be exercised by the chastisement- despising it, rebelling against it, but that will only lead to our failing of the grace of God.  It is most assuredly the grace of God that works in us as we are being exercised by chastisement.

Please Lord, please help us to accept Your chastisement, help us to be exercised by it, help us to follow peace with all men, bless us Lord, keep us in YOU always. We are wretched, poor, blind, and naked, and we need YOU for everything! We need YOU in us making us NEW in YOU.

Thank you, Lord, for the spiritual feast You prepared for us tonight, please let it nurture us as we need it so desperately to do.

All by YOUR LOVE!

A bitter spiritual feast

Spiritual Feasting.

Let's have a spiritual feast, by the grace of our Lord.  May the Holy Spirit guide us to all truth...

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord

The spiritual feast before us is meant to nourish us spiritually. We need to be able to discern between good and evil and all our spiritual feasting is geared towards that end.

We are told here to follow peace with all men. Something that sounds simple enough but when we get right down to it, we have to realize that all the contentions we call NORMAL are really NOT NORMAL at all. We've learned to call evil good, remember? So now we need to be reminded by our Lord and Savior what evil is truly evil and what good is truly good.  As I mentioned, we call all our petty little spats good- we call them healthy and tell ourselves it's better than holding all the anger inside. We bicker and pick at each other as a way of life and call it love because in truth no one would ever have this warped thing we call love if we believed that contention and all the annoyances were detrimental and something to avoid. 

ALL those nitpicking nasty nuisances, all those tiny snide remarks, each one is WRONG! They aren't cute, they aren't sweet, they are NOT terms of endearment that we've come to pretend that they are.  We lie to ourselves and call them good but the truth is out there for us to realize. The truth is that all contention from the tiniest bit to the biggest is not peaceful.  We are not following peace with someone we are belittling. We are not following peace with someone we are answering cockily. The tone of our voice revealing our feelings at the moment can show more than our words.  Saying the words 'I love you' with a nasty tone doesn't reveal love at all.

Peace.

We need to recognize that our lives are filled with things that are not PEACEFUL and in recognizing that- we need to beg for forgiveness and repent of that behavior, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us into peace, true peace with all men.  We can't simply accept our inherent nastiness and label it good and acceptable. We must be allowed to see all our evil so that we may cling to Christ's goodness.

More tomorrow by the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR, more feasting spiritually.  What we might taste is bitter and hard to swallow, but if it nourishes our spirit that's all that really matters.

All by the grace, the love of Jesus Christ, always!  All praise, all honor, all glory, all thanksgiving to God!

How do we keep our spiritual life alive?

Peace with all men.
Holiness with all men.

These are TWO mandatory things for all Christians because without them NO MAN will see the LORD.

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord

We have to strive to be CHRIST'S, always!

We have to strive to live a SPIRITUAL life, always!

We have the physical life down pat, but the spiritual life is tricky.

We barely feed our spiritual being let tend to it in any other way.

How do you feed your spiritual life?

1Pe 2:2  As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
1Pe 2:3  If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

Milk of the word.

1Co 10:1  Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
1Co 10:2  And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
1Co 10:3  And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
1Co 10:4  And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

Drinking from the Spiritual Rock-  the Rock was Christ.

Heb 5:12  For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
Heb 5:13  For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Heb 5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Need of milk (spiritual milk).

Need of strong meat (spiritual meat).

Milk is for babes- milk is for the unskilled in the word of righteousness.

Meat for those of full age- by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Do we see- do we understand?

We grow with spiritual milk and once we are grown enough we switch from spiritual milk to spiritual meat.

Once we are grown spiritually we are able to discern both good and evil.

Could it be true that we simply want spiritual milk all the way through? Milk is easy to digest. Milk is easy to tolerate. We want to be fed the milk. We want the milk giver to be more accountable then we are. You don't hold a baby accountable for getting its own milk. You don't expect an infant to feed the milk to itself, but be fed. 

The consequence of never growing spiritually is remaining a babe and remaining unskillful, it is  being unable to follow peace and holiness with all men and if we can't do that remember the outcome?

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord

This is truth.

As long as we refuse to grow spiritually we are denying ourselves eternal life.  Eternal life is a spiritual life fully realized.

We must grow in CHRIST.

We must truly study God's word and spend time with God every single day! If we can, even more than once a day. We have no trouble feeding our physical selves, no trouble at all. Of course we don't have someone constantly by our side doing all they can to keep us from eating physically either. We do have someone constantly trying to keep us from feeding spiritually. We have an enemy who has used every trick in existence to keep people from feeding spiritually. Denying access to food, giving an over abundance of food but stealing the desire to feed, he'll do EVERYTHING and ANYTHING to keep us spiritually sipping at the milk and never finding the meat. Satan does NOT want us to be able to discern between good and evil, and in that discerning keep from evil!

Please Lord, help us to grow spiritually. Help us to feed spiritually. Help us to realize that we truly need to be immersed in your word, in YOU.

We would follow peace and holiness with all men- this is YOUR will that we live spiritually in YOU, by YOU, for YOU.

All by YOUR LOVE!

Never give up

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord

Another action.

Why do we try to deceive ourselves into believing we don't need to act? Is it because we recognize our total inability to be what we know or think we know God wants us to be?

We are told to FOLLOW PEACE with all men.
We are told to FOLLOW HOLINESS with all men.

Rom 6:22  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

Have your FRUIT unto holiness.

2Co 7:1  Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

CLEANSE ourselves from ALL FILTHINESS of the flesh and spirit.
PERFECTING holiness in the FEAR of GOD.

1Jn 3:2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
1Jn 3:3  And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

PURFIETH HIMSELF.

Rev 22:12  And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
Rev 22:13  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Rev 22:14  Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

DO HIS COMMANDMENTS.

We CAN'T work our way to heaven, but at the same time we cannot live in such a way that we are encouraging sin in our lives. All the changes we might make, all the actions we might take- every commandment we keep, every bit of purifying we attempt, all the cleansing of filthiness from our lives, all the perfecting of holiness, all of that will NOT save us.  Only CHRIST JESUS saves us! We KNOW the life our Savior lived. We KNOW the life our Savior would have us live. We KNOW the life we will have in eternity is a life CHANGED completely by our SAVIOR.

As we cling to CHRIST, cling to HIS righteousness, HIS grace and mercy. While we cling to HIM, we learn more of HIM through HIS word. When we learn more of Him we want to BE MORE LIKE HIM.  We WANT it, even if we feel very far from being capable of being like Him.  And desiring to be LIKE HIM, to have HIM live in us, we are convicted by the Holy Spirit to know right from wrong and do to right over wrong! 

We cleanse ourselves, we purify ourselves, we perfect the holiness in the fear of God by growing CLOSER to CHRIST.

By choosing NOT to do the things that we are convicted are things that Christ would not have us do, we choose CHRIST. By seeking FORGIVENESS over and over again, not ever giving into the despair of desiring to give up because we KNOW how utterly impossible it is for us to be what our Savior would have us be, this is what we must do!

We must continue to do all that we are admonished to do, never giving up! Never giving up EXCEPT giving up in believing that we can ever save ourselves in any way.

Please LORD know us! Please LORD keep us! Please LORD save us from ourselves!

PLEASE.

All by YOUR GRACE, YOUR LOVE!

Let it be healed

Chastised -- learning from that chastisement we should--

Heb 12:12  Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
Heb 12:13  And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

Lift up the hands.
Lift us the feeble knees.
Make straight paths.

The lame will be turned out.

Let it be healed.

We have to let our spirit be healed. We have to have faith- raising our hands, our knees, walking straight.  We have to be spiritually strong! If our spiritual Father is chastising us - teaching us so we are made spiritually sound in Him, we have to accept this chastising and let it make us STRONGER spiritually, NOT weaker.  We will be tempted to let our chastisement get us down, to depress us, to make us weaker and not stronger. When you're put through a fire you feel the pain and agony of that fire but when the fire is over you either heal and are determined to be stronger, or succumb to the chastisement letting it make you weaker. It's satan's entire purpose to bring us to despair. Satan wants us to remain weak spiritually. Satan doesn't want us strong in the Lord! Satan would have us weak, he would have us walk on crooked paths, he wants us lame.  Satan does not want us HEALED.

We have to let ourselves be healed.

We can stand in the way of our own healing.

We can set up our lives so we sabotage ourselves spiritually. We can leave no time in our day for spiritual growth. We can put more importance on work and pleasure than we do on our spirit growth.  We call it RELAXING. I just need to relax which means not troubling ourselves over anything remotely like something that could possible lead us to worrying or stressing in any way.

Seriously.

We say we need to unwind which means just shutting off our minds to anything of real importance. We put ourselves in front of our television sets and just let it entertain us, but what its really doing is stealing our time. No? You'll say it makes you laugh, is lets you live without a time without thinking about your jobs, your money, your worries, your sickness, your future etc. you KNOW what I'm talking about.  Next you'll say to study your Bible means having to think, having to worry, having to let go of doing nothing and work your brain when all you really want to do is NOTHING, you want to relax. You want to do something that doesn't trouble you in the least. You don't want to think about your chastisement but rather forget about it, as if it didn't happen. You don't want to be exercised by your chastisement. You don't want to learn from it. You don't want to make your paths straight, you'd much rather just forget you were walking a crooked road. 

This is truth, what I'm speaking is TRUTH! You know it's truth!

We want downtime, time that means we don't have to do anything except while away the hours in semi-enjoyment, if not full-enjoyment.  Laugh at your television shows, cry at them as they bring you into their lives of pure fiction and cause you heartache for imaginary beings.  Pick up your books and play your computer games, your video games, do all that just so you don't have to deal with the reality of your spirit life.

Do we stand in the way of our own healing?

Let it be healed.

We are told to act-

Lift up the hands.
Lift us the feeble knees.
Make straight paths.

To 'lift', to 'make', to 'let'.   These are all actions.

Lifting, making, letting.

Do we? Do we act on behalf of our Spiritual life?

More tomorrow by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST! 

May we lift, make, and let!

We would be YOURS LORD! Teach us to be YOURS. In a world that would have us concentrate totally on ourselves in a selfish way, help us to concentrate on YOU and YOUR will for us! 

Please let us let it be healed!

We love You Father of spirits!  We need YOU!

Bless us LORD, forgive us!

All glory, praise, and HONOR unto YOU!

Father of Spirits

The Father of Spirits.

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

The Father of Spirits.

There are fathers of flesh, we know all about that don't we. We are flesh, and every man who impregnates a woman becomes a father. They've contributed to creating another human being. Those fathers are our birth fathers, fathers of our flesh. The fathers of our flesh correct us in order to teach us obedience, teach us to behave in the proper manner. If we misbehave then we need instruction to teach us how to behave and the consequences of our not behaving.  We understand this without any problem, don't we? We've all as adults (those of us who are) have had that sort of correction from a father or if not a father, a mother, or if not a mother then another authority figure raising us from childhood. 

The Father of Spirits .

We have to be spiritually born to have a spiritual Father. 

Remember Jesus telling us that we must be born again? Born of Spirit and born of water.  When we are born of Spirit we have a Spiritual Father.

Our Spiritual Father will only ever chasten us for our PROFIT.  Our flesh fathers often chasten us without any real standard but their own. They feel annoyed they chasten us, and they can chasten us unjustly as happens all too often.  Our Spiritual Father will NEVER chasten us unjustly. The ONLY reason our Spiritual Father chastens us is so that we may become His sons and daughters and partake in the holiness of Him, the love that is Him.

Chastened. 

Chastening is grievous, not joyous.  IF, when we are chastened we are EXERCISED by that chastening- meaning we LEARN from that chastening- then we will have the righteousness of Christ as the result. The fruit that results from the experience is peace and righteousness all found solely in Christ.

We MUST accept our Spiritual chastisement and learn from it, let it be a part of us. Our Savior alone is righteous and He will live in us! He loves us! He died for us! He wants to live in us and us in Him.

Chastened.

Remember the definition--
1. the whole training and education of children (which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment) It also includes the training and care of the body
2. whatever in adults also cultivates the soul, esp. by correcting mistakes and curbing passions.
a. instruction which aims at increasing virtue
b. chastisement, chastening, (of the evils with which God visits men for their amendment)

We are chastised when we have our mistakes corrected, our passions curbed. We don't like having our passions curbed or being corrected. We want to do what is right don't we, but our flesh nature seems to steer us towards doing things that aren't good for us. Because isn't that what it boils down to?  The things we do that aren't what our Spiritual Father wants us to do so that we may be with Him, are only things that are harmful to us- if not in flesh, then in spirit.

Please Lord, let us NOT despise Your chastening! We need our Spiritual Father to bless us, to keep us, to teach us, to chastise us as often as is needed so that we may be HIS. We won't like it, it's not pleasant, but LORD help us to LEARN and be exercised by YOUR chastising. Please LORD, please.