Do you believe that you can change? We can all experience drastic changes; we can all make phenomenal development. II Peter 3:18 tells us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” By the grace of God, we can be different in a year’s time from what we are today.
Let us study the way of change. First let us see what locks us into a sameness, into an inability to change. Because we want to grow and to be more like the Lord, let us discover those things which lock us in and prevent us from moving into a higher spiritual level.
Some Scriptures have a depth of meaning that we may not always see at first. Hebrews chapter 12 speaks of the dealings of God, but it does not emphasize that our going through problems and difficult circumstances should result in our becoming discouraged over them. Paul gave another viewpoint in Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him.”
If you are a son, God chastens and disciplines you (Hebrews 12:6). He does not allow anything to destroy you if you are open to hear what He is saying. You can so react to your circumstances that they either become the chastening of the Lord to help you become a son, “a partaker of His holiness” (Hebrews 12:10), or to deal with a wrong spirit you might have when you go through that chastening.
Notice the warning given in this passage: Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. Hebrews 12:14–17.
What locks a man into a state of heart, into the bitterness of his own spirit, so that even when he seeks a way to repent he cannot? What is God trying to teach in this Scripture concerning Esau? Peter said that God “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).
These next verses may not seem related to bitterness, but in them you will see how you can become locked into this state. “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen).’ ” Notice that after teaching this prayer, Jesus said, “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” Matthew 6:9–15.
It appears that God will forgive any other kind of sin; but if we are bitter, if we are unforgiving, if we have a critical spirit, we seem to be locked into it. Jesus said that we can pray this prayer, but if we do not forgive men their trespasses and debts, God will not forgive us. This is very true. It is not that God does not want to meet our hearts. God has not pointed out one sin as being worse than another. He is warning us here about the kind of sin that enters a person’s spirit. There is a lock on our spirits when we are bitter or critical. We become like Esau who had a root of bitterness. He so lost his sense of values that he sold his birthright for one meal. It seems amazing, because Esau had come from a godly man. Though he sought a place of repentance, God did not give it to him.
Paul wrote, 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. II Corinthians 7:1. There is not only a filthiness of flesh, but also a filthiness of spirit. This filthiness of spirit may be an accumulation of bitterness in our spirits that actually locks us into a certain state or condition. This happened to many ministers in days past. When they experienced difficult situations, bitterness arose in their spirits, and they became very critical. Sometimes such a minister left the ministry and drifted until eventually, maybe years later, he fortunately had a new opportunity for a change of spirit so that God could meet him.
Many adversities happen to us which do not seem to be of much consequence. We merely shrug them off and go on. But going through a difficulty and becoming personally bitter freezes our spirits. If we become bitter and critical and feel as if we have reached our limit, we may become locked into that state for years. Then there is the danger of never coming out of it. Seek a forgiving spirit. Throw your problems on the Lord and forgive others. Determine to keep your spirit open and go on with the Lord. Having a right spirit is more important than just being right in a situation.
In a conflict with others, those who do not have a right spirit become bitter. They insist that they are right and the other party is absolutely wrong. Years later, the man who was wrong may be amazingly further with God than the man who was right but had a bitter spirit. How terrible it is to become bitter! To be able to really forgive and forget is like having an insurance policy, a guarantee that you will always be flexible and malleable so that God can shape you into the vessel He wants.
Do not be critical. Do not even associate with people who always criticize. Run from them! Paul said, “We who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak” (Romans 15:1). We are to restore a brother with “a spirit of meekness, considering ourselves, lest we also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). Whenever you deal with someone with a bitter spirit that has locked him into that state, you will rarely, if ever, be able to talk him out of it. If he changes, it will only be by God meeting him through chastening and revelation.
Revelation does not usually come through to bitter people. You can drive a bitter man to do what God told him to do, but if he is not doing it with a right spirit, even when he seems to repent, he will do as Jonah did. Jonah was a bitter prophet. Because he did not want to do the will of God, he journeyed the opposite way. Then God prepared a large fish by which He dealt with Jonah, and he was thrown up on the seashore. Jonah then hurried off to Nineveh and prophesied, but his spirit was so bad that afterward he sat down to watch God destroy Nineveh. When it did not happen, he sulked with anger. God said, “Are you doing well to be angry?” Jonah retorted, “I do well to be angry” (Jonah 4:9). Bitterness was still in his heart.
Jonah was a prophet who did not have enough love to forgive, but he was also enough of a prophet to know that he had experienced a scare he did not want repeated. He did not want to go back to more judgment, but he did not want to go on to full deliverance either. He was locked in by the bitterness of his own spirit, so that even when he went through the right motions he was not right before God.
Have you noticed that you cannot offend some people? They may not always seem to be the brightest or the most considerate, but they do have a good spirit because they love the Lord and are pressing in to serve Him. In contrast have you known someone to say, “I love the Lord, but I cannot stand So-and-So. I will never forgive him for what he did to me.” Has that person grown since bitterness entered his spirit? Chances are, he has not grown at all.
Life is very difficult for people who are bitter. They tend to misinterpret their situations. One very old man had experienced hardships in his childhood as the son of a minister. This left him bitter against his parents because they had been harsh and exacting and austere people. He never seemed to recover from this. Throughout the years his son who knew the Lord often visited him, trying to draw him out of his locked attitude of a bitter heart. We trust that he finally opened his heart to God at the end of his life, even though he never experienced walking with Him.
May God help us never to become locked into a bitter spirit. May we never become so trapped that we cease growing and have no change of opinion or new revelation. Then we would have nothing! Most or all that we have spiritually would disappear if we were locked into that unforgiving bitterness.
The “root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many are defiled.” A bitter spirit spreads defilement. It reaches out to defile. If someone with a right spirit talks about troubles, you will not be troubled. But if someone with a bitter spirit tells you about even a wonderful service you missed, you will be glad you were not there. Opinions and presumptions are carried by a wrong spirit, but revelation is carried by a right spirit.
Do you realize the danger of carrying a grudge—of having an unforgiving spirit in your heart? To avoid this, pray, “O Lord, I forgive everybody!” In the first place, the issue is not whether or not they wronged you. Hebrews says that God chastens you so that you will be “a partaker of His holiness,” and He does this with “every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:10, 6). Try to gain a right attitude toward God’s dealings, because bitterness generally comes to the individual who thinks God has wronged him: “God did it!” Yes, God deals with you, but how does your spirit accept or interpret His dealings? It is important how you interpret your life.
In Exodus 15:23–25, we read about the children of Israel who could not drink the waters of Marah, which were bitter, until God showed Moses how to make them sweet. Marah means bitter. We find another reference to the word bitter in the story of Ruth. She cried to her mother-in-law, Naomi, “Entreat me not to leave thee!” Then they traveled together to Bethlehem, where some women said, “Is this Naomi?” But Naomi answered, “Do not call me Naomi” (which means pleasant); “call me Mara” (which means bitter) “for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me” (Ruth 1:20). Naomi was saying, “Just call me bitter.”
Naomi might not have been the sweetest company one could find, but something in Ruth’s heart wanted to walk with God. Naomi, who was raised to serve Jehovah, left her homeland and experienced His dealings. Then she returned bitter. However, the girl Ruth, a Moabitess, supposedly a heathen Gentile, learned about the Lord and determined to walk with Him. Naomi’s bitterness did not affect Ruth.
When God was looking for a grandmother for King David, He chose Ruth, a woman who refused to be bitter, no matter what she suffered. Soon after Ruth came back with Naomi, she married Boaz. They had a son named Obed. Obed had a son named Jesse, and he had a son named David (Ruth 4:22). If God was that careful about selecting David’s great-grandparents, we, too, should be a little more concerned that we do not mark our children with bitterness.
Paul said that we are not to walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Ephesians 4:18–19. What causes a man to fail and his understanding to be darkened? One transgression leads to another. Paul, tracing the cause, shows what hardness of heart can do to you. If you harden your heart, you do not think right. How foolish Pharaoh was to harden his heart against the Israelites! Ignorance was in him. He was excluded from the life of God. His understanding was darkened. All this, because of his hardness of heart.
In Ephesians 4:30 Paul spoke of something you must keep—an openness to God. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. You have seen what hardness of heart does. It darkens your understanding and your capacity for receiving revelation. Your blessings leave when you harden your heart. Do not harden your heart! Keep your heart open.
At the start of today’s end-time moving of God, many prophecies came which the people were not really hearing. Most of the prophecies were saying, “Open your heart! Open your heart to what the Lord is doing! Open your heart!” After six months, the people finally realized what the Lord was saying. “He is telling us to open our hearts! This is what He has been saying for six months!” As soon as they opened their hearts, they immediately moved ahead spiritually.
Paul said further, Let all bitterness (note: “all” bitterness) and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 4:31–5:2.
Keep your spirit right. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Do not become locked into a certain level, going around and around a problem. Leave it and go on. If you are filled with murmuring and complaining, you will become like the children of Israel. They were delivered over to unbelief because they first murmured and were bitter, due to the difficulties along the way. The Scriptures show how angry God was with their murmuring. This was an affront to Him. They continued murmuring against Moses and against God, wandering around in circles until they dropped dead.
This is not what God intends for us to do, but we need to be aware of what locks us into a futile situation. We want to be changeable. We want to be flexible and open for more of God. We do not want to always be looking back to one special experience we may have had, thinking, “What a meeting with God that was!” We can receive more than that from the Lord at any time, anywhere, if we keep our spirits open to Him.
Is it your tendency to build a monument to past experiences because you are not pressing into greater ones now? Why not press into greater ones? What defeats you? What locks you in? What sets the brakes so that you cannot move? Usually some bitterness or criticism in your own spirit has made you inflexible.
In studying deception, I have seen that usually it is not what one person perpetrates against another; it is a state of heart which causes people to deceive each other. “Deceiving and being deceived” is a prophecy of the end time (II Timothy 3:13). What opens a person to deception? The Scriptures have shown us that it is some state of spirit. What opens a person to the truth? Jesus said, “If any man will do His will, he will know the teaching, whether it be of God” (John 7:17). His heart is open because he has set his will to do the Lord’s will. And because he has set his will, the Lord leads him onward, step by step. “The path of the righteous shines more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). If you are not coming into more and more abundant life, more and more revelation, then find out why you are locked in.
Do you want to move ahead faster? First, open your spirit a bit more to the Lord. If you often think about a problem that happened several years ago, tell yourself that it does not matter whether you were right or wrong. What counts is that your spirit is open now to walk with the Lord and to walk with your brother. You can shout, “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done!” But you must say, also, “Forgive me, just as I am forgiving.”
God will forgive you to the same extent that you forgive others. But if you do not forgive, then He will not forgive you (Matthew 6:15). After Jesus prayed the Lord’s Prayer, He added this last thought: “If you do not forgive, you are not going to be forgiven” because you have locked yourself into an impasse, a state of no mercy. Forgive, right from the heart; and let the Lord forgive you. Prepare to walk on with the Lord. Do not stay in the same old state. When it was time to leave Mount Horeb, the Lord told the children of Israel, “You have stayed long enough at this mountain” (Deuteronomy 1:6). We too must move on by faith in our hearts.
God grant that we all continue to grow. Never look back to the “good old days.” That would be a sure way to freeze yourself in a present period of transition. Do not criticize those who are having difficulties. Do not think, “They must do better or get out.” They are locked into something; and if they were not locked in, they might be teaching you to seek God and be doing much better than you are doing.
When people do not have revelation leading them onward, it is because they are critical of everything. Because they have that critical spirit they are locked into a limited state of revelation. Help them to be delivered from a critical spirit with a little bit of love on your part. This is the one key that will fit every lock-in. Love them! Help them! Loose them! Be sure that you are not a little bit critical or bitter toward them, or that you feel a little superior to them.
Paul said, “What do you have that you did not receive? And why do you boast or act as though you had not received it?” (I Corinthians 4:7.) It was a gift. No credit to you—God gave it to you. Maybe someone else was struggling over something while you had an open heart—through grace He gave it to you.
Every time God leads us into a new step, some people are severely shaken because they had so much trouble in the last step. They were not able to move into the last step with a right spirit and a right heart. Then when they face something beyond them, they are lost. God rarely gives you more light until you walk in what He has already given you. You cannot walk in what He has given you unless you have a right spirit, a tender spirit toward Him.
David sang in his Psalm: “Where can I flee from Your presence? If I make my bed in hell, Thou art there” (Psalm 139:7–8). David was a man pursued by God. He cried out in his sin, realizing the need of his spirit, “O God, renew a right spirit in me, a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:10, 17).
Let us all cry for a right spirit and honesty before God—not to justify ourselves, and certainly not to go back and dig up old issues, but to humble ourselves and to flow together in the compassion of the Lord. Paul said, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Be kind to one another, gentle, forgiving each other as God also has forgiven you.” The Lord will help us as we open our hearts. If we have any malice toward a brother that holds us back in our spirits, we must rid ourselves of it now.
Esau sought a place of repentance; but he did not find it, though he sought it carefully with tears. Esau did not have someone in the grace of God to instruct him, as we have today, so that he could understand that the problem was in his own spirit. He was seeking to get back his blessing, but he never looked at his own heart. If you trace his descendants, you will see nothing but confusion between his people and Jacob’s people. Although God restrained Esau from killing Jacob, Esau never seemed to rid his heart of bitterness. I believe he defiled his generations afterwards. Much of the trouble in Israel today is between the descendants of Esau and the descendants of Jacob. Esau’s bitterness still stands.
Once you become locked into bitterness, you will interpret everything that happens to you with bitterness. You will fail to rejoice in anything if you are always bitter. You need not be that way. Through the grace of God that is ministered today, you can humble yourself before Him in repentance and be delivered from any bitterness. Pray, “Forgive me, Lord. I want this bitterness out of my spirit.”
When a church is ready to move ahead in the Lord, those who are bitter in spirit will be left behind. They will never be able to catch up with what the Lord is bringing forth if they do not remove bitterness from their spirits. If you have any bitterness, take care of it now. The Lord’s heart is open for you to repent. You need not make this kind of admission: “Well, I was wrong. I take the blame for what happened in that problem years ago.” The issue is not whether you were right or wrong; it is a matter of your spirit being made right.
Have you ever wondered why the Lord said to love your enemies, even to turn the other cheek rather than respond with hatred and bitterness against them? (Matthew 5:39, 44.) Paul told wives to be in submission to their husbands. He told the husbands, “Love your wives, and be not bitter against them” (Colossians 3:18–19). Maybe a wife nags her husband and gives him a bad time, but Paul said, “Love your wife.” Do you think that God does not seem to understand what is right and wrong? He understands right spirits very well.
Do you want to become right with the Lord? You can do this by acquiring a right spirit. The bitterness in you may not necessarily be toward the Lord. You may love the Lord with all your heart, but are you bitter against your husband or your wife or your children? Are you bitter against others in the church? Are you carrying wrong attitudes in your spirit? These are weights that slow you down. If there are certain things that you think about and automatically become angry, that anger is bitterness.
When bitterness hit Esau, he determined that he was going to kill Jacob. He carried that bitterness for years, and he would have killed Jacob if God had not intervened. What was in the heart of Laban when he prepared his men and pursued after Jacob? He was ready to kill him, but God stopped him with a warning in a dream (Genesis 31:24). Bitterness was in Laban’s heart, and yet in every way Jacob had blessed him. If you tell a man that you were trying to do good for him, and he believes you were trying to do him ill, he will not listen to you. No one ever changes his opinion as long as he is bitter. Flexibility comes only where there is a forgiving spirit.
Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “In malice be children, but in understanding be men” (I Corinthians 14:20). Little children do not know how to carry bitterness. In time they learn it when they see their parents bitter and critical. Let us come before the Lord and get rid of all our bitterness. For our own sake, we must not be bitter against anyone, no matter who they are. It does not matter whether a brother was right or wrong, but we must be right in our spirit in order not to be held back. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us (Hebrews 12:1).
Anything wrong in your spirit is a weight which slows you down. Maybe the problems you are facing are difficult, but “consider Christ who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds” (Hebrews 12:3). What a wonderful Lord we have! Just as God for Christ’s sake forgave you, you too must forgive others. Lay every problem on God’s altar and forgive everyone.
What great release will come to a church when all the people open their hearts to the Lord! Do not be wary of the brethren; lay your suspicions at the feet of the Lord. Do not wait for them to speak to you. Speak to them! Reach into the gentleness of Christ and love them with loving-kindness and tender mercies. God will help us walk on with Him if we rid ourselves of bitterness.
If you keep remembering things which have bothered you, bury them in the sea of God’s forgetfulness (Micah 7:19). Be rid of them. Lay any wrong that is in your spirit at the altar of the Lord. You can be like the Lord, as perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). How many have sinned against Him, yet He has continued to love them! Open your heart and let His mercy and love flow through you. Forgive others and ask the Lord to forgive you. Lift your heart to your Master and pray that your heart and your spirit be right in His sight, broken and contrite to walk before Him.
What is needed to bring a revival, an outpouring, a visitation of the Lord’s presence? In some of the books which old-time evangelists wrote, they told how they first entreated the believers to humble themselves before the Lord and see that their spirits were made right. After they helped the believers to become right before the Lord, they would start preaching. Charles G. Finney’s trilogy, Lectures to Professing Christians, Lectures to Sinners, and Revival Lectures, may seem tedious to read in this day, but it is interesting to note that he first exhorted the professing Christians to get their spirits right. Then he started preaching to the sinners. The Christians created the climate for God to pour out His blessings and bring precious people into the fold.
God wants you to keep your spirit open. When newcomers see your beautiful spirit, they will open up their spirits too, and God will meet them.
When changes come they generally start with you, but there will be no change until your spirit changes. Are you locked in with bitterness? Do not blame others—just lift your heart to God.