Be Tender-hearted
Ephesians 4:31-32 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
One of the things that God’s Word talks an awful lot about, is what’s going on in our hearts; in your heart and in mine. There’s a reason for that. The heart is the seat of our emotions. And when we have bad stuff happening in there, deep on the inside, we can’t help it – it just bubbles to the surface.
We end up speaking and acting that bad stuff out. So, it’s easy for me to say to you – be kind to other people. It’s easy to say, but it’s incredibly difficult to do, with anger and bitterness bubbling away in your heart.
Might I ask you today, who do you feel angry towards right at this moment in your life? Who’s words or deeds have hurt you and left a root of bitterness in your heart? Toward whom have you hardened your heart, in a defensive response against that pain? Because today, I’m believing that God wants to set you free from that, as only He can, by His Spirit and His Word. Are you ready?
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)
That’s quite a list there of destructive emotions – bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander and malice. And if I said to you today – put them away, get rid of them – let me tell you, it wouldn’t make an iota of difference in your life.
But today, right here and now, it’s not me that’s saying it, it’s God through His Word and He, He has the power to help you to do exactly that. When God speaks through His Word – as He is here through Ephesians 4:31-32 – when the Holy Spirit lifts that Word off the page and writes it on your heart, He gives you the power you need to change. More power than you’ll ever need in fact!
So friend, take His Word into your heart right now:
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Replace all those negative emotions with a tender heart, a soft heart, a heart that feels and loves and forgives – just as God, in Christ, through His terrible suffering – has forgiven you.
Because armed with a tender, gentle, kind, forgiving heart, you can change lives with God’s love. Armed with a tender, gentle, kind forgiving heart, you can build bridges of peace, bridges into hurting, desperate lives that one day … one day, Jesus will walk across.
Be kind and tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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