"Lo, for my own welfare I had great bitterness; It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, For You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

Prayer....."You are the one Lord who gives us the strength to deal with the everyday issues of life. Strengthen our resolve to do better and to act graciously toward each other, to express the love of Jesus Christ which resides within our hearts, so that we may confess our innermost feelings of anger, resentment, and bitterness, so that we may be clean and faultless before your presence because we relinquish our will to you, and surrender to your faithfulness and love, in Jesus Name......."

Why is it necessary to banish bitterness from our hearts and minds? Because once we choose to live in constant anger and bitterness, we are no longer living as children of God, but as the children of wrath.

Bitterness blocks our ability to feel the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts, so we would live loveless lives. We cannot love ourselves or anyone else. The lie that the devil whispers into our heart is that we cannot give up on this feeling, that we must have our revenge. The Lord states that He is the only one that should fight our battles for us, we cannot do so in our own strength and be able to conquer the pain in our hearts. Revenge does not erase the past or the effects that bitterness will have in our lives.

The stages toward bitterness are:  Anger, Resentment, Bitterness, which leads to numbness of the heart and mind. We become spiritually dead, we cannot feel God's love or His spirit in our hearts. This does not mean that the Lord has left us, but it is our state of bitterness that blocks the Lord's healing of our minds, bodies, and souls.

Many people who are ill are wracked with bitterness. They may have asked for healing in their prayers, but their prayers go unanswered. It is up to us to examine our hearts to see if we are harboring anger, resentment, or bitterness toward someone and then we must confess this to the Lord so that we may be healed in the body and in the soul.

You may have bitterness against yourself and your situation in life. God knows what you need, but you must give Him the throne of your heart. Surrender to His will for you and your life and then He can heal you of what ails you. God must be first, and you must be willing to follow Him and not your own agenda.

Once you realize that you are not alone and that God has been waiting for you to live according to His will and His standards for your life, your new life in Him can begin. Live for Him and not for yourself.

Understand that there is no anger, resentment, bitterness or strife in Heaven, so you must deal with these issues here. Here is where we learn to be children of the most high God. He will not tolerate people in His kingdom who refuses to forgive others, or those who  refuse His forgiveness.

To be absent from the Lord means you will live in everlasting darkness, here in this world and in the next, so be careful when you act towards others with bitterness, because if you do not repent, you will never enter into the Kingdom of God.