Oh the heart is a weak thing. A sinful thing. And prone to lead us astray, abandoning all for the sake of self-promotion, self-preservation, and self-absorption. In the Old Testament it represents the center of all emotions.… the place where true self is formed and developed. It serves as most critical in the battle between righteousness and evil, and cannot be trusted.
Hebrews 12:15 says, in part, “… Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grow up to trouble you, corrupting many.”
I’ve read this verse probably more than four dozen times. In fact it’s probably safe to say that my bible is worn down in this section from returning to it for insight and reminders.
The Message version says it this way, “Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time.”
The King James Version uses a unique word to illustrate the result of subjecting yourself to bitterness. It’s this word, “defile.” “… Lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”
To defile means to stain, pollute, corrupt, contaminate.
Bitterness is contagious. It causes pollution. It corrupts. And it contaminates.
You know this to be true.
You can walk into an environment where the bitterness of another is present and suddenly there’s a shift in the atmosphere. Suddenly there’s a palpable disturbance that wasn’t present before. Suddenly you begin to feel yourself in a stressful state-of-mind that leaves you feeling irritated and sometimes even physically sick.
Why? What happened?
The bitterness in a person pollutes the atmosphere by which even those seeking after holiness will become contaminated and infected. It’s as though the disease in which they have been affected by escalates in power and influence, infecting us and leaving us stained and polluted in the process.
And there are absolutely some situations we have no control over. Some individuals that we must stay engaged with regularly for the purpose of family or a working relationship. But we must stay alert to what’s going on. We’ve got to stay awake and seek wisdom from God on how to handle these situations - “lest [we] become defiled.”
Contamination kills. And often we are “guilty by association."
Contamination means this = making something impure or unsuitable by contact with something unclean or bad; rendering something harmful or unusable.
Wow.
I could be rendered unusable by the association I keep with evil and destructive persons?
Yes.
And this is why we must guard our hearts above everything else.
We’ve got to understand our “bent” toward these types of people and these kinds of environments. We must recognize the things that, by association, keep us in a pattern of impurity. We must properly identify the disease and stay immune to the infection by refusing involvement that serves as a setback to our spiritual growth.
Scripture defines the bitterness as a “root”. And when that root is allowed to grow it begins to alter our actions and attitudes and following a slow-fade we have become the very thing we set out to guard ourselves against.
Keep vigilant over the matters of your heart. Protect yourself at all cost from the damaging affect of bitterness and evil of any kind. Be alert!
It matters more than we even know!
It should be our prayer daily: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.“ Psalm 51:10
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