Help

DEVOTION
EPHESIANS
HELP
Eph 4:31-32
31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
NIV
This sounds like highway heaven. I think the first part of this is more like being on the highways and byways of my great country. But I fear the word is not talking about that but rather about what is going on in the inside of my being. This does require some introspective analysis on a continual basis. I think some of these emotional states might creep in every so often without notice, or maybe with notice. No, not the kind of notice where they announce themselves, but the kind of notice which I am aware them getting in. The question I have to deal with is what I do with them once I notice an arrival. Are there times when I entertain some of them? Do I enjoy those feelings such as bitterness and rage? Are they just outbursts of an un-controlled spirit? I actually hate myself immediately after sensing I have allowed any of these emotional conditions to exist within me. I know better and yet they creep right up and slap me across the face. No I have to exercise a greater skill level of recognizing the conditions in which they might arrive. As well as I need to be filled up more with the Spirit so that I respond in kindness and compassion instead. I don’t think I have a problem with the forgiveness part but yet that may not be completely true either. If I am feeling bitterness then I actually am neither in a forgiving frame of mind nor feeling any sense of kindness. This is tough stuff to deal with. This requires a real check up from the neck up. Will the real me please show up! Maybe this is the war that wages within my being, the two in one, the old and the new battling it out, who is going get the better of the other. I know all about putting off the old self and putting on the new, but maybe the old just is so strong that still after all these years it hasn’t giving up. I know the answer is more of Christ, more of the Spirit and I am seeking that even as I write. Lord, I need your help!