In Touch Daily Devotional for 19 August 2023
In Touch Daily Devotional for 19 August 2023 – Saturday Daily Devotional Message Written Dr. Charles Stanley
TOPIC: A Bitter Root
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SCRIPTURE: Hebrews 12:14-15
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
MESSAGE: Yesterday, we examined a scene in which bitterness was a poison. Today, let’s consider another useful illustration that will help us understand the effects of resentment.
Hebrews 12:15 describes bitterness as a root. Where do you find roots? They are underground, gathering water and nutrients from the soil around them. Without the root, the vegetation would collapse and die.
Can you see how this image parallels your spiritual life? Perhaps you have a root of bitterness in the soil of your heart. Does the fact that it’s unseen mean that it is inert and harmless? Absolutely not! The root is doing its job—sucking the life from you to strengthen a cynical and hateful weed.
Thankfully, there’s a solution to the problem. “Once you were full of darkness,” the apostle Paul tells us, “but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:8-9 NLT). To kill a weed, you need to dig it up by the root. Pull the source of your resentment out of its hiding place. Bring it into the light and then throw it away for good.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Jeremiah 33-36
REFLECT: Ask God to remove anything in your heart that keeps you trapped in darkness.
In Touch Daily Devotional for 19 August 2023. Charles Stanley is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta and founder of In Touch Ministries, both located in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Stanley’s heart’s desire is to get the gospel to “as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God.
