Live Free with Josh Howerton - Gentleness Over Bitterness | Ep. 214 | Thursday, November 30, 2023

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

When the pressure is on, whatever is inside of us comes out. Isn’t that convicting? We cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit and resentment at the same time. If we allow the Spirit to work, He will gently take us to the cross. Here we can see our need for forgiveness allowing us to embrace gentleness and let go of bitterness. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's daily drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. This Christmas, we want to invite you and your family to join us for our candlelight services on December 22nd through 24th at any of our six locations or for church online. For more information, visit lakepoint.combe.combe. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, Hope, you're having a good day and wherever you are that you're living in the awareness of God's

goodness and presence with you today. My name is Mike, and we've been talking about how the Holy Spirit of God grows amazing fruit in hearts that have good soil, soil that has been cultivated by humility, and fertilized with gratitude. When you and I are receptive and dependent, he does some pretty cool transformation in us. For years now, I've been using that Fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians chapter 5.

It's kind of a replay monitor. Check how I might be growing or not growing in certain areas. I begin to pray, you know, search me, old God. Would you get your eyes on me? How's my love these days? How's my kindness? How's my faithfulness? How's my patience?

How's my goodness? And this week we've been talking about the one on that list that God told me I needed to work on. It kind of surprised me. In fact, they even argued the call. But he was right. And after further review, I needed to go to work on gentleness. The past couple of days we talked about how God wants to take us to the wood shop,

not the woodshed, but the wood shop, and plain our disposition and take a router to our rage. And today I want to introduce you to the belt sander. I'm learning that to produce this quality of gentleness in me, the Holy Spirit wants to sand out my bitterness. And, gang, this is a big deal. You know, if you've got preschoolers, you probably had a few capri sons around your house. And when I'm talking about, you find these empty foil pouches in the couch cushions in the minivan under your pillow.

Some kind of juice box squeeze it in your house, right? Anybody have trouble getting a straw in one of those things? I told a nurse not long ago was taking some blood out of my arm as she stuck me. I said, I am so impressed you could do that. I can't even put a straw in a capri sun. I just can't. But here's the deal with these little pouches or these little boxes that squirt juice in your mouth. Whatever is on the inside comes out when you apply a little pressure.

And people are like those squeezes. Whatever is inside of us comes out when the pressure is on. When situations put the squeeze on you and me, whatever is on the inside, it's just going to come out. I mean, if it's love, if it's joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and the rest, it's going to come out. But the more unresolved tension and bitterness we have on the inside of us, guess what? That's going to come out too.

And honestly, that's why some of us get flagged for unnecessary roughness so often. You might be filled up right now with stress, hurt, past memories, overloaded schedules, anxiety, insecurity, disappointment, frustration, resentment. That's what's in you right now. And you're so full of that stuff that anytime anything or anybody applies a little pressure or even slightly jostles you, it squirts out, and the people around you get hurt. You see, bitterness is the antithesis of gentleness, power under control, because it is power out of control. And bitterness will suck all the joy out of your life.

It'll cause you to judge other people, criticize everybody who doesn't see things your way, walk around with a chip on your shoulder and a grudge deeply embedded in your heart, and your life and those around you are being slowly destroyed. I'm learning that you cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit and fill with resentment at the same time. He's just not going to live in that environment. He wants to move in and get rid of that bitter poison. See, bitterness, it stems from some kind of hurt. And the enemy of our soul would have us do two things.

Either deny the hurt or dwell on the hurt, deny or dwell, or even get a swinging like a pendulum between the two. But the Holy Spirit says, no more denying and dwelling. Let's deal with it. Instead of holding on the grudges and hurts and entitlement, looking to exact revenge, he will take you to scriptures like these, Ephesians 4, 2, be humble and gentle, be patient with each other, make an allowance for each other's faults because of your love. He'll take you to Colossians 3, 13. You must make allowances for each other's faults,

and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. And the Lord who forgave you, Jesus, he says this in Matthew 544, love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. That former non-genital tough guy, Paul, wrote this in Romans chapter 12, verse 14. Bless those who persecute you. Bless them do not curse. I mean, right now, if you're honest, after further review, maybe the reason you were dishing out unnecessary roughness on yourself and other people is because you got so much unresolved bitterness in your soul, still all messed up over somebody in your life that hurt you embarrassed you, used you or abused you, and it's eaten you alive.

And today the Holy Spirit is saying to you, come on, let's get rid of this bitterness, and let's replace it with gentleness. So who is it? I mean, what is it that needs to be forgiven? Humble yourself today and let it go. Give that bitterness over to God. Say, God, would you sand this bitterness out of my soul? If possible or profitable, and sometimes it's neither.

Go to the person. and make things right, or maybe just write a letter that you never send, or make a phone call, or go have coffee, or maybe even stand in front of a tombstone, and just pray a prayer of forgiveness, whatever you need to do. Let it go. Offer forgiveness. Let the Holy Spirit start to sand out all of that stuff from your soul.

I'm praying for you today as you do that. It's not easy work. I'll see you back tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.ch slash daily drive.