Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do. [NLT]

There are many ways a person can backslide and lose out with God. It may be over the love of money, popularity with the world, adultery but the most subtle and deadly way that Satan has to trip up a saint of God is to inject bitterness into his heart.

Bitterness is a violent inward displeasure against others. It is usually caused by a feeling that someone has taken advantage of you. One of the easiest things in the world to do is to become bitter. You can become bitter against your wife, your husband, your pastor, your country, the Church, your employers, your parents, etc.

Bitterness is like carbon monoxide, a highly poisonous, odorless and colorless gas. Bitterness is not easily detected by others until the life of the victim has been snuffed out.

Bitterness is a cancer that is sure to spread. One bad apple in a barrel will surely spoil the others. Likewise, listen to the tongue of the bitter soul. It will almost certainly continue to wag until others, both in and out of the church, are contaminated.

God’s Word is very clear to state that the Christian response to anger must be forgiveness. God feels so strongly about forgiveness by the fact it is a conditional principle of the Bible. If there is bitterness in your life you have given Satan power over your life.

Unforgiveness does a great deal more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than the object on which it is poured.