Friday: The Bitterness Poisoned Him
WEEK 33
FRIDAY
THE BITTERNESS POISONED HIM
Hebrews 12:12-15
We continue to look at the mastery of resentments. A woman was a puzzle and a problem to the doctors. They could find nothing physically wrong, yet she was dying. She could assimilate nothing; everything she ate came back, rejected by her system. The doctors called in a minister and said, “There is something there that we cannot touch. See if you can find out what it is.” He found it was a deep-seated resentment, a bitter hatred against a woman who had been going around with her husband. “I could tear her limb from limb,” was the bitter outburst. He gave her several of my books and marked the places where I spoke of resentments and their effects. She saw she was wrong and surrendered the resentments through prayer. Three days later when she sat in church, she waved to the doctor, her face radiant. She was a well woman in spirit and in body. The doctor pronounced it a miracle; it was a miracle of grace.
A businessman was worked on by pastor after pastor to get him to become a Christian and join the church. No response. One day a pastor got to the bottom of his hardness. He told of how his wife had walked out on him over a trivial difference and had never returned. The bitterness over this poisoned him. He could not and would not forgive. Then in prayer he gave it all up. He appeared in church; and before the minister had stopped speaking, he came to the altar and made his confession and joined the church on the spot. He is now a useful, victorious Christian.
A wife was tied in knots with resentments against her mother-in law and other in-laws, because the house they all lived in was not divided so she and her husband could have a life of their own. She was just as bitter against her husband for not dividing it. Her stomach was tied in knots and her nerves bad. But the stomach and the nerves were perfectly good; they were being badly treated. For the stomach and the nerves are made not for ill will but for good will. The wrong messages were going over the nerves; the nerves were good.
Gracious Lord, help me to send the right messages over my nerve wires so that they will send health, not illness, to the rest of my body. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My nerve wires will carry nothing but messages of love today.