Bitterness rots our souls

It's no secret that the Bible talks about the effect bitterness and unforgiveness has on us. When hearing others speak about it, including James MacDonald recently this thought came to mind... "As bitter lemons and limes are to our taste buds, that's how bad bitterness is to our souls." That was my thought, but does it really go far enough? What does the Bible say about bitterness? Acts 8:23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” So being bitter is to be captive to sin! Wow. Ephesians 4:31 tells us to

Get rid of all bitterness. So we are under command to get rid of it. How do we do that? We forgive - even if the offending party doesn't ask for it. That's tough to do. At Life we play songs about this topic such as Forgiveness from Matthew West and 7x70 by Chris August, Toby Mac has a song about Forgiveness as well... many artists do. It's no coincidence as if we let unforgiveness fester in our souls it rots us from the inside out and bitterness sets in and we become ineffective for Christ - the enemy of our souls wins. 

So how do we beat this? Forgive. Overcome evil with good as Scripture says. Don't give the Devil a foothold. Easy to say, tougher to do...