Seize the Moment – Day 1185
The Corruption of Envy and Bitterness!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, June 15.
You can have faith in God and hope in His glorious return, but still be hijacked by your emotions and hoodwinked by your flesh. Even as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), you are still living in a “tent” that is vulnerable to a full range of human realities (2 Corinthians 5:1-8). Don’t be deceived, you are susceptible to the corruption of envy and bitterness, as Psalm 73:1-3 and 21-22 accurately diagnosed:
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. … When my heart was embittered and I was pierced within, then I was senseless and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.
As a child of God, you are so much more that a beast! Therefore, pay careful attention to what Asaph is teaching you in today’s psalm: envy and bitterness can cause you to become senseless and to stumble out of the way of God. He then gives you the solution – don’t lose sight of God and His call upon your life (ref. 23-28). You do this by continually listening to His counsel, rigorously maintaining a sober heart and clear sight by meditating upon His Word and praying in His Spirit. Paul taught in Ephesians 4:22-24, “You lay aside the old self … that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 73, meditating upon the power of God to transform your story – “My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26, emphasis added).
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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