“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).
Life is not fair. It never has been, and (despite the passionate belief and destruction wreaked by “social justice” zealots) it never will be.
Satan seeks to use this fact to cultivate bitterness in your heart. He knows that once bitterness has taken root it will cause ceaseless trouble and defilement in your life (Hebrews 12:15). A bitter heart is a strong beach head for the spiritual assault the principalities and powers and rulers of darkness and spiritual hosts of wickedness seek to unleash on your soul.
From the fortress of bitterness, Satan’s devastating arsenal of wrath, anger, quarreling, evil speaking, and malice can be unleashed with deadly accuracy. And oh, the destruction which comes from the simmering outbursts of anger, hostility, vicious revenge, loud and ugly confrontations, backstabbing, constant bickering, and verbal abuse which explode on the scene! Hearts are shattered. Homes are broken. Nations self-destruct.
Purity of heart is essential to spiritual victory. No one has genuinely learned Christ “who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23) without personally rooting up and carrying away all such things belonging to the old man.
Such action is not optional; it is imperative. It is impossible to be renewed in the spirit of your mind without first ridding yourself of everything noxious to the fruit of the Spirit.
