Excuses Breed, III

Job 36:¹³ “The godless in heart harbour resentment; even when he fetters them, they do not cry for help.” (NIV)

Today, we will start by looking at what we need to do to combat The Excuse that breeds SELF-INDULGENCE before we delve into the next excuse that weakens spiritual traction. To be strong in spirit, and have spiritual traction, you must Discipline Your Desires. Your desires are not necessarily bad but desire out of control will weaken your spiritual traction. 1 Peter 4:^1-2 “Strengthen yourselves with (Christ’s) way of thinking…  Live your lives controlled by God’s will, not by human desires.” (GNT, paraphrased).

The second excuse that weakens spiritual strength and spiritual traction is The Excuse That Breeds RESENTMENT. There are a lot of excuses that breed resentment; however, we will look at one major one which is, They Hurt Me First. They hurt me first, so it is their fault. They hit me first, they should not have hit me. He should not have said that to my brother, so it is his fault that I reacted the way that I did. She should not have said that about me, so she got what was coming to her. And because we feel that people hurt us first, we erroneously conclude that we had the right to hold them in unforgiveness and to harbour resentment towards them. To be in a continual state of disappointment, anger, and bitterness is to be filled with resentment.

You must have a victim mentality for resentment to have a grip on you. Everyone that struggles with resentment feels justified. They feel they are the victims. Listen, you are not a victim. I am sorry that what happened to you happened to you. But the key thing is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit down in the trap of the enemy, or are you going to shake it off by the power of the Living God? What is it going to be? The truth is, we all hurt, so why do people say or think they will not get hurt? It does not make sense. You cannot live in a broken world and want a perfect life. You cannot live in a broken world and not be hurt. It is not possible.

The Word of God says in Job 5:² “To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do.” (GNT). Every time you and I wallow in resentment, God is saying, ‘Child, that is a foolish decision!’ You say, but they hurt me first. They did it once, but now you are hurting yourself repeatedly with resentment. Someone hurts you once, but you have hurt yourself a thousand times because every time you resent it is like you are stabbing yourself. Why do you keep hurting yourself? Shake it off! Get rid of it! Guess what? When the enemy sees that instead of wallowing in resentment, you are flowing in joy, it makes him run mad.

Prayer: Father, search me and point out every resentment in my heart, in Jesus Name. Amen!