STANDING STRONG IN CHRIST SERIES:

Lesson 4 - Part 1: Close Doors to the Devil

​Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil  (Eph. 4:25-27).

Although I am no longer in the classroom personally, it continues to be my deep desire to teach people the ways of the Lord to help them avoid unnecessary pain. To Stand Strong in Christ, we must know who Jesus is, the ways of the enemy, and the authority we have in Christ Jesus. That’s why I developed and taught this series for the Seminary at Calvary Commission.
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It’s hard for us to comprehend that there is absolutely nothing good in Satan. He is total evil. To live daily in the victory we have available as born-again Believers, we must be aware of ways we give him opportunities to harass us. The top four doors we can open to the enemy are anger, bitterness, illicit sex, and fear.

But first, we need to understand that we have authority. Each act of our will is an act of authority. Each decision we make is either in line with God or in conflict with Him. Before our new birth we only made self-willed decisions and established our authority independently of God.
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As Believers, we can still make choices that are not in sync with the truth of God. We can make deep-seated personal decisions, and when we don’t have our way, we become angry. That self-rule is misused authority. It always opens us to unnecessary warfare with the devil. This lesson deals with the doors of Anger and Bitterness that give place—opportunity—for conflict and pain. 

Anger Gives Place to the DeviL

An important distinction needs to be made between unrighteous and righteous anger. Jesus had righteous anger several times. For instance, And when He [Jesus] had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other  (Mark 3:5).

Righteous anger is directed at the violation of truth and will be followed by a sense of grief. It will move the person to righteous action and will attack the violation, not the person. Its motive is to produce good results.

When I taught in prisons and jails, unrighteous anger was always an upfront issue the men faced. Everything that happens in life results in pleasure or displeasure and leaves us with one of those feelings. Anger is an emotion, a feeling, and to deal with it successfully, one has to go to the source: A real or imagined loss.

It’s a struggle to deal with injury, insults, or unmet expectations. We deeply hold expectations and when they are not met, we become angry. The result of displeasure reaching the “fight or flight” level of anger is a strong desire to retaliate or take vengeance. If allowed to be in control, anger causes us to forget the future and risk everything to win the moment. We can lose awareness of consequences of our actions.
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It’s not enough to tell someone to “control your anger.” They must discover and overcome the pain of whatever has caused them to lose something important. It can be reputation, financial, friendship, family, betrayal, and any number of things. There are levels of anger, from mild irritation to rage. Whatever the level, when we allow anger to stay we open the door to the devil and give away our peace. But that door can be closed by taking each loss to Jesus and asking Him how to handle it.

Bitterness Gives Place to the DeviL

Bitterness is a guaranteed next step if anger is not resolved. Bitterness is holding an offense against someone, and at the same time holding them in emotional debt, a debt we expect them to pay us. It can happen after experiencing a loss if we hold onto that loss. Eventually all bitterness goes back to God because we reason, He’s God and “in control.” Without realizing it, demanding that God give us a satisfactory explanation as to why the loss happened, we make God accountable to us.

Bitterness saturates the whole being of a person. Peter speaking to Simon the Sorcerer said, For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity (Acts 8:23). Physical poison takes control of a healthy body and makes it unhealthy or brings death. Poison in our spirits brings hinderance or death in our relationships. Iniquity means joining to something that is out of sync with justice—giving away to something that is not right. Spiritual poison and iniquity wreak havoc in our lives.

The foundation of bitterness is “Having an outbreak of selfish ambition that creates a division with others.” If Satan could love, he would love for us to be bitter. It’s a root to great evil.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there (James 3:13-16).

When we experience painful loss, we have four choices:

• If something can be done to correct the situation, do it.
• Become bitter by holding on to the loss.
• Ignore our need, stuff it, and become hollow as a person.
• Release the loss to God and receive His Grace.

Hebrews warns, looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled (Heb. 12:15).

What is wrong in our relationships with each other is also wrong in our relationship to God. When we are bitter all the devil has to do is to touch that bitter spot and we will act out of our bitterness. If we make the choice—and it is a choice—to release our loss to God and receive His Grace, we close that door of opportunity to the devil and peace is restored.

Part 2 of this lesson will be in the next Update. The focus will be the open doors of illicit sex and self-preserving fear. In closing, whatever ways we have allowed the devil opportunity to harass us, in the Name of Jesus and by the authority He has given us as Believers, we can stand strong in Him.

For more in-depth teaching on bitterness, see our July 2020 Update.