There are four primary enemies of the heart – four life blocking agents that become lodged in the heart, poisoning our relationships, our faith, and our character.  These corrosive forces gain strength from the darkness.  Secrecy is their greatest ally!  Left to their own, they grow in power and influence. 

1. Guilt - I owe you.  Guilt is the result of having done something we perceived as wrong and as an act of theft.  We owe an apology, we have to pay up.   Why?  Because our hearts tell us we took something, that we’re now debtors in some fashion.  Nothing less than paying that debt will relieve a guilty heart of its burden.  It must be paid or canceled for the guilty heart to experience relief.

1. Anger - You owe me!  Results when we don’t get what we want or what we think we deserve.

Show me an angry person and I’ll show you a hurt person.  As we go through life heart dings happen.  If anger is lodged in my heart then before long, I will come to believe that everybody owes me.  Ask your family or friends if you are an angry person.  If you feel like a volcano is brewing, you interrupt and defend or explain yourself.  If you find yourself wanting to just walk away or even run away, pay attention!  If you find yourself getting angry at your friend for answering a question you asked, then yeah, you are more than likely have some anger lodged in your heart.  While it is true that you can’t undo what’s been done, it is equally true that you don’t have to let the past control your future.  You first have to decide that you can be free, that you can quit using your story as an excuse.  Your story explains your behavior, it doesn’t excuse it.  An appropriate way to use your story is not as an excuse but as a testimony of God’s ability to free you from the past.  Anger alienates us from other people.  A heart filled with anger is a heart looking to be paid back.  Unfortunately, in most cases, it is our unsuspecting friends and family who are made to pay.

1. Greed – I owe me!  There is usually a story to tell.  Greed is easy to disguise and hides behind several virtues.  Greedy people call themselves careful, savers, planners, and have a financially secure future.  All those are good, right?  Greedy people talk a lot about money, are not cheerful givers, are reluctant to share, are poor losers, quibble over insignificant sums of money, talk as if they have just enough to get by, create a culture of secrecy around them, won’t let you forget what they have done for you, are reluctant to express gratitude, are not content with what they have, and attempt to control people with their money.  Greed is not a financial issue but a heart issue.  Your family may feel like they compete with your stuff.  In Luke 12:15 we see for the greedy person that stuff equals life.  Their stuff is an extension of who they are.  To tamper with or ask for or damage their stuff is personally threatening.  Fear is the driving force behind greed.  Greed is supported by an endless cast of what ifs.  People with greed lodged in their heart fear that God either can’t or won’t take care of them.  They are afraid that God won’t take care of them in the fashion or style in which they want to be cared for.  So they acquire and maintain everything they need to provide the sense of security they desire.  Problem….there is never enough.

1. Jealousy – God owes me!  We immediately think of the things others have that we lack - looks, skills, opportunities, health, inheritance, etc.  Your jealousy is really an issue between you and God.  We blame God for not giving it to us because he could if He wanted.  The people we are jealous of can do nothing to remedy the situation.  Jealousy is dangerous because it shapes our attitudes toward other people.  It’s hard to actively love someone you’re jealous of.  It’s hard to submit to someone who is a constant reminder of what you are not.  There is one thing that serves as a salve to jealousy…when the person I envy suffers a setback of some kind.  There will always be someone who is richer, skinnier, more talented, better connected, prettier, or just plain luckier than you.  And until you find the way to deal with your jealous heart, you will be unable to follow the most basic of all Christian tenets – love one another.

How to change?  

You can’t expect to overnight break a bad habit that you’ve spent years behaving yourself into.  It takes a habit to break a habit.  You need to develop new habits but old habits die hard and often define us.  Sometimes we even dismiss them as our personality…That’s just the way I am, the men in my family are famous for their tempers, what can I say, I am emotional, I’m a saver, I just love food.  Destructive habits need to be broken.

1. Confession exposes our secrets and frees the heart from the oppressive power of guilt.  Confession isn’t an excuse to keep sinning but is change.  In Luke 19:8  Zacheus confessed publicly and repaid. Our relationship with God hinges on our relationship with other people, including those we have offended.  You cannot resolve your differences with God if you are unwilling to resolve your differences with the people around you.  Open confession has the power to break the cycle of sin.  That is the purpose.  Odds are that you’re not going to go back and commit those same sins again.  Guilty people are usually repeat offenders unless they confess.  Openly.  We are responsible for restitution.  Think of someone whom you desire an apology from?  Someone who hurt you and never made it right.  How would you feel if they confessed?  Do that for someone else.  Don’t fuel someone else’s anger or bitterness.  We may hold the final piece of a puzzle allowing closure to someone.  Make confession a new habit.  Keep short accounts.  SO, got any secrets?  Are you playing the confession game?  Ready to break the cycle?  Confess.  It is a habit that could change everything.

2. Forgiveness allows others to come out from under cover.  Like walking into a cobweb, frantically cast it off (Eph 4:31-32). Hurt rejection, criticism, stuff just not going our way – all of these things leave us feeling like victims.  Victims always have an excuse and are powerless.

Matthew 18:21-35…How often do we forgive?  Jesus answers with the parable.  Forgiveness is a decision to cancel a debt.  You don’t forgive because the other person deserves it; you forgive because you have been forgiven.  Your pain is not a trophy to show off.  It is not a story to tell.  It is potentially poison to your soul.  TO refuse to forgive is to choose to self-destruct or put yourself in prison.

1.  Identify with whom you are angry.

2. Determine what they owe you.

3. Cancel the debt – Heavenly Father, ____ has taken _____ from me.  I have held on to this debt long enough.  I choose to cancel this debt.  ____ doesn’t owe me anymore.  Just as you forgave me, I forgive ____.

4. Dismiss the case.  Forgiving doesn’t = forgetting.  Remember that they don’t owe you anymore.  

To pursue or wait for payback is futile.  To insist on it is to set yourself up for unnecessary heartbreak.  To hold to our hurt while waiting to be repaid is to allow the seeds of bitterness to take root and grow.  When that happens, we allow the person who hurt us once to hurt us over and over and over again.  Unresolved anger from intentional and unintentional hurt is the most devastating.

1. Generosity allows us to partner with God as he shows himself in tangible ways to the world around us.  In Luke 12:15-21 we learn to ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do with the extra?”  People fill their houses with lots of junk and stuff and store it.  Abundance of stuff doesn’t equal abundance of time left.  Someone else gets your stuff.  Either you will give it away while you still have time or it will be taken away when your time runs out.  Focusing on what you don’t have leaves the heart vulnerable to greed.  Why did God provide me with more than I need?  When we don’t have enough we wonder why.  Why not wonder when we have more than enough.  You don’t actually have to have to be greedy, but if you already have a plan to spend whatever comes your way on yourself, you are a candidate for greed.  Retire early.  Fund good ministries.  It’s not bad to have money, but we will not take it with us.

2. Internally…Pour out your heart of discontentment to God.  We need to remember He has given us what we most needed.  In the shadow of the cross, it is clear:  God doesn’t owe us anything.  We owe him everything.  Externally…Show happiness for others.  Celebration makes us a vehicle through which God communicates his pleasure.  To guard against it you must celebrate the success, size, and stuff of those you have tended to envy.   Expressing truth helps to free you from the emotional bondage that is such an integral part of jealousy - Hebrews 4:15 & 16.

Where to start…

Ask your family or close friend:

1. Do you think I struggle with being completely open about things?

2. Do you feel like I have walls?

3. Do you ever feel like you’re competing with my stuff?

4. Do you feel like I compare you to other men/children?

5. Are you ever afraid to talk to me?

6. Do you ever wonder which one of me you’re going to come home to?

Don’t defend yourself.  Give God access to those sensitive, otherwise off-limits areas of your life.  If you do, what may begin as a threatening and uncomfortable revelation may result in a freedom you never knew existed.