We continue the searching and fearless inventory of ourselves with an honest look at any resentment, anger, bitterness, hatred, or unforgiveness that remains in our lives.
The Bible tells us how damaging resentment is to our Christian walk:
I John 2:9-11 – Anyone who claims to be in the light but
hates his brother is still in the darkness.
10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the
light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the
darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded
him.
And the Bible tells us how damaging resentment is to our relationship with God.
I John 3:14-15 - We know that we have passed from death
to life, because we love our brothers.
Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer has eternal life in Him.
1 John 4:20-21 –
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a
liar. For anyone who does not love his
brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21
And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his
brother.
And Jesus said that if we refuse to
forgive men for their sins against us, God will not forgive our sins.
Matthew 6:14-15 – “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
So, it is essential that we uncover any unforgiveness that remains in our hearts. It must be removed. If we are unwilling to forgive others, and anger, bitterness, hatred, resentment, and unforgiveness remain in us:
And if all that is not enough reason to be motivated to seek a life free from resentment, we know that God not only requires us to be free from resentment, He commands us to be free from resentment. If we refuse, we are in direct disobedience.
Leviticus 19:18 – “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.”
And Jesus said:
John 13:34-35 –
“A new command I give you: Love
one another. As I have loved you, so
you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are My
disciples, if you love one another.”
Mark 12:28-31 –
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing
that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked Him, “Of all the
commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus,
“is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself.’ There is no commandment
greater than these.”
And like we read in 1 John 4:20-21 on the previous page, we cannot do the greatest commandment if we refuse to do the second greatest commandment. If we say “I love God” and hate our brother, we are a liar.
In the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, our inventory in Step 4 begins with a look at resentments. Quoting from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, “It (resentment) destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease-.“ Resentment destroys alcoholics, Christians, as well as human beings across the board, and the scriptures that we have read so far in this study clearly support the fact that from it (resentment) stem all forms of spiritual disease.
In Sinner’s Anonymous, we are going to list our resentments the way we list them in A.A. In doing this with God’s help, we hope to uncover any resentment, anger, bitterness, hatred, or unforgiveness that remains in our lives. We also hope to have a better understanding of why we get, have, and feel resentment (more specifically why,
--other than just the fact that we are wretched human beings, so we resent people.)
Once again, we can’t do an inventory of ourselves, by ourselves. Our inventory must be done with God’s help. We need to ask God to examine us, to show us our hearts, and reveal any resentment in us that we have repressed, suppressed, justified, ignored, or just forgotten about without true, genuine, and sincere forgiveness.
I have added a “Review of Resentments” page for our resentment inventory, and instructions from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous that explain how to fill them out.
“In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. We listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry (Column 1.) We asked ourselves why we were angry (Column 2.) In most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We were ‘burned up.’"
“On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal, or sex relations, which had been interfered with?” (Column 3)
“We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived.”
”It is plain that a life which includes deep
resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that
we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while.”
“Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man’s. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.” (Column 4)
From an honest look at our list, we hope to see that it is not the people, institutions, and principles that we resent, it is what they have done to us (fancied or real) that has caused us to be upset. Most of us will also begin to see a pattern develop in Column 3. Upon careful examination of the instincts that we feel have been threatened, we should come to realize that if our relationship with God in these areas was right, and we were looking to Him to provide for, fulfill, and maintain our instincts, we probably wouldn’t be wasting precious time resenting these people for threatening our instincts. We can’t do much about the people in this world and the wrongs that they will do to us from time to time, but we can do something about our relationship with God. If we are standing firmly on solid ground with God, it will not matter what someone might do,
--we will remain unshaken and free from anger and resentment..
The scriptures have made it very clear that anger, bitterness, hatred, resentment, and unforgiveness are poison to us. If our hearts and minds are filled with such things, they cannot be filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These feelings of resentment must be mastered, but how?
Philippians 4:13 – I can do everything through Him who
gives me strength.
The power
to free us from resentment is not going to come from us; it is going to come
from God. However, we must be willing
to let go of these negative feelings, and let God work in us. He can and will remove the bitterness and
replace it with love.
Love:
I John 4:7-12 -
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone
who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love. 9 This is how God showed His love among
us: He sent His one and only Son into
the world that we might live through Him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but
that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one
another. 12
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us
and His love is made complete in us.
Love is a fruit of the Spirit of God in us, and from it (love) stems all forms of spirit-filled fruit.
I Corinthians 13:4-7 - Love is patient, love is
kind. It does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it
is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres.
If our minds and hearts are filled with love from God, there won’t be room for bitterness and resentment. Love and hate can’t exist together on the same plane. However, there are tools to get rid of the more “harder to let go of” resentments. Here are a few:
“This was
our course: We realized that the people
who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick.
Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us,
they, like ourselves, were sick too. We
asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we
would cheerfully grant a sick friend.
When a person offended we said to ourselves, “This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God, save me from being angry. Thy will be done.”
We avoid
retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t
treat sick people that way. If we do,
we destroy our chance of being helpful.
We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to
take a kindly and tolerant view of each one.”
--from the book of A.A.
Proverbs 20:22 - Do not say, "I'll pay you back for
this wrong!" Wait for the LORD,
and He will deliver you.
Romans 12:17-21 – 17 Do
not repay anyone evil for evil. Be
careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on
you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave
room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is Mine to avenge; I will
repay," says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give
him something to drink. In doing this,
you will heap burning coals on his head." 21
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Prayer:
“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”
--from
the book of A.A.
And Jesus said:
Colossians 3:13-14 – Bear with each other and forgive
whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
14 And over all these virtues put on love,
which binds them all together in perfect unity.
When we look at our inventory in the light of God’s Word and see the kind of people we have been, it should make it easier for us to forgive others for being wretched human beings as well. We need to forgive people for being human. If we expect them to be more than that, we will spend our lives in resentment. No one lived a perfect, sinless life on earth except Christ.
And He said,
Luke 6:37 – "Do not judge,
and you will not be judged. Do not
condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Matthew 5:7 – Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Step 1 | Step 2 | Step 3 | Step 4 | Step 5 | Step 6
Step 7 | Step 8 | Step 9 | Step 10 | Step 11 | Step 12