"Being Set Free From the Bondage of Bitterness & Self-Bitterness!" S5 Part 3A-1 - Recognize You Are Bitter!

[Rev. Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks, PsyD]

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III. Obtaining YOUR Freedom From Bitterness & Self-Bitterness – Part 3A-1:

A. Recognize you are bitter and make a conscious decision to forgive. In order to get rid of the toxic emotion of unforgiveness, you first must recognize you are bitter and then you decide to forgive. You cannot act as if there is nothing wrong; you cannot sweep what happened to you under the rug and live in denial! And despite the saying, “Time heals all wounds,” it does not – ONLY God can heal your wounds! Therefore, you must deal with what happened to you, bring it to the forefront of your mind, so you can know you are bitter at the person and then decide to forgive. This MUST be done no matter how painful it may be; recognizing you are bitter and deciding to forgive are the first steps to recovering from bitterness.

You are bitter if the thought of the person who hurt you, hearing his/her name, seeing his/her name, etc. makes you angry! If you are always putting yourself down or calling yourself “Stupid,” you have self-bitterness; you are bitter at yourself! To get rid of the unloving spirit which is causing you to have self-bitterness, you must deal with what happened to you to cause this in order to be set free. Holding onto memories of what happened to you is not doing you any good, in fact it is killing you spiritually and physically! The person or persons whom hurt you are not thinking about you; he/she has moved on – most of the time, to their next victim! Likewise, beating yourself up for mistakes you made, is not doing you any good and killing you spiritually and physically too! I say you are killing yourself spiritually and physically because there is a connection between your mind (thoughts) and body (physical house); let me explain.

 

When people believe they been wronged, they become offended. This offense, if not dealt with, can lead to angriness, hatred, self-hatred, jealousy, fear, bitterness, self-bitterness, sorrow, guilt, etc.; this is why forgiveness is so very important. The toxic emotions that are associated with unforgiveness will only leave when you forgive your offender. The recovery process (recovering from what happened to you) begins when YOU decides to forgive!

 

Don’t worry about the other person; most of the time, he/she will not ask for forgiveness – put them in God’s hand and move on! There are spirits that try to keep you from forgiving people; they are called accusing spirits. Accusing spirits are the original of all negative thoughts. The goals of the accusing spirit is to bring us down, bring others down, and try to discredit God. These spirits seek to separate us from God and others. Accusing spirits love to plant doubt so our faith can be destroyed. The accusing spirit continually reminds us of what others has done so we will forgive them; it is like a record is in our heads and rewind is pressed on a continual cycle. Don’t allow accusing spirits to cause you not to forgive others or yourself! When these spirits comes to play back in your mind what the other person has done, bring those thoughts captive under the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).

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May the peace of God comfort you ALWAYS!!!

 

Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks

 

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