And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.     Ephesians 4:30-32 NKJV

I can’t speak for everyone else, but as for myself, I hesitated to completely surrender my life to Christ because of all that I knew would have to be eliminated from my life. I had sin that I just wasn’t ready to give up. I had all kinds of justifications for it. I had all these reasons why I thought God would just overlook it. But all I was doing was believing the devil’s lies.

I hung onto bitterness and refused to forgive. The devil told me that God knew how these people had treated me and He would understand. That’s a lie. I was angry and the devil told me I had every right to be, but that also was a lie.

But as Christians, we must go through the process of elimination. I say it’s a process because old habits die hard. It takes prayer and faith. It takes a close relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Scripture passage tells us that our sin grieves the Holy Spirit of God. We all have grieved God enough, don’t you agree? Once we accept Christ as our savior, it’s time to start to eliminate that sin from our lives. Our Scripture passage even gives us a list of what needs to go. The first sin mentioned is bitterness. Bitterness is simply unforgiveness. You can’t forgive someone and continue to have bitterness in your heart. It just doesn’t work that way. When someone comes against you and/or someone you love, it’s hard to not be bitter. For me, it took a lot of prayer. I had to stop myself several times a day when these thoughts of bitterness would creep in and beg God to remove it from me, and that’s just what He did. Of course, I don’t trust this person, but I have been able to forgive them and no longer be bitter toward them.

Next on the list is wrath, wrath is acting on our anger. It’s okay to be angry. Anger is an emotion, but we should never allow our emotions to control us. As we eliminate wrath and bitterness, we find that it is easier to control our anger. We should be in control of our emotions. Wrath is when we express that emotion, especially in ways that are sinful or ways that grieve God’s Holy Spirit. If we rewind up to Ephesians 4:26, it says that we can be angry but we should not sin.

The next on the list for removal is clamor which refers to shouting, quarreling or fighting. Let’s be honest, sometimes we just love a good fight, especially if we are angry. But, God is our avenger (Romans 12:19). It’s His job to handle it when someone comes against one of His children. If we trust in Him completely, we should understand that He fights our battles. Give it over to Him.

Evil speaking or slander refers to telling everyone what a horrible person someone is because they angered you. Even if you begin, by saying, “Please pray for this person because they…” It’s still considered slander.

Last, but not least, is malice. Malice is defined as the intention or desire to do evil. As Christians, we should have our hearts filled with a love of Christ and His Holy Spirit. We have no room for evil intentions. These must go! If you harbor things like anger and bitterness it will lead to wrath, fighting, slander, and malice. This is why all of these things must be eliminated from us. This elimination may not happen overnight, it’s a process.

The process of elimination is something that we may have to continually pray about. It’s hard to remove these things especially when the devil is right there sending people to test you daily. The devil likes to also whisper those lies in our ears.

Our Scripture passage ends by telling us to be kind and tenderhearted to one another forgiving them as Christ forgave us. The next time you are angry because someone has done something to you or spoken against you, think about the times you have sinned against God. How would you want Him to handle that? Would you want Him to be angry, bitter, fight against you, slander you and plot evil towards you? Or, would you want Him to be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving towards you? Our job is to love God and love others, His job is vengeance. We could save ourselves a lot of stress by simply eliminating those things that are not in our job description as Christians. If you haven’t started that process of elimination there is no time like the present.

Have a great day!