Church Hurt and the Bitterness Root.

Church hurt. Whether you've grown up in church or you're a Chreaster (Christmas and Easter only), it's very likely you've experienced "church hurt." If you've grown up in a church I'm sure you've experienced it first hand, and if not I'm sure you know someone that has. I have grown up in church, I currently work for a church, so there are plenty of opportunities for me to get hurt. I've been burned by people I've confided in, I've had people say hateful lies about me, I've been accused of doing something I didn't do, but you know what? I'm sure at some point in my 21 years of going to church, someone was hurt by me. I gossiped about someone and it got back to them, I magnified someone else's sin to  make my mistakes seem smaller. I believe so often, especially people my age, when we are hurt we leave. We run. We quit. We stop going to church, we stop hanging out with our "church friends", we stop serving with all our heart. And the root of bitterness gets a little bit deeper. Yesterday, Pastor Kenny preached a pretty basic gospel message but one thing that he said really resonated with me. "The gospel never hurt anybody." Jesus has never once hurt me. The Bible has never one time put me in the wrong direction. People hurt people. Because I've followed my own desires I've ended up in places I never imagined I would ever be. Places where I can see my rotten attitude affecting my walk.

I think bitterness can be so easy to disguise. You say "I don't care what they say or think, I'm just gunna do me." But you're hurt. Words hurt. Feelings are not wrong. God created us to have emotions but He also gave us the fruit of self-control. Emotions can not determine how you live. He who hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. Everybody hurts, everybody has felt the sting of betrayal or the iciness of bitterness creep into their heart. But when you put those walls up, that hardness in your demeanor...people can see that. People can see through your toughness, your I don't care, your halfhearted ministry. And often, probably more often than we even realize, it affects more than just you. All over churches, singles departments, youth ministries-people are hurting. I'm so tired of the fakeness. Let's be genuine Christians that care and that love and that serve like Jesus. Isn't that what we love to say, "Oh I just want to be like Jesus!" Well, Jesus wasn't petty, and I think the way Christians go around hurting other Christians breaks His heart.

I'm thankful tonight, this morning, for a God who has never one time hurt me. For a God who can remove the root of bitterness and replace it with contentment and His genuine love. I'm thankful for a God who forgives me and who is constantly reminding me that because He has forgiven me, I have no right to hold others to a higher standard of repentance. I'm thankful for a God that is real, in every sense of the word. A God who never makes mistakes. A God who has placed me in a church, that even though there a people that will cause me to get "church hurt" I know who I am in Christ and no one can take that away. Remember who you are. Remember Who you belong to. And dig up that root before it becomes a tree.