This past week, we had a lively discussion on the spiritual stronghold of bitterness. In this, we started with a spiritual taxomomy as presented in the book "A More Excellent Way" by Pastor Henry Wright.

According to Wright, the spiritual stronghold of bitterness is supported by seven subordinate spirits:

This list can be viewed both as a list of spirits and as a spiritual progression that must be interrupted before it reaches its conclusion. So, if you are hurt and do not forgive, you will progress down the list until you reach the point where you contemplate murder. This murder may be literal, but more often takes the form of gossip - destroying the reputation of the one whom you failed to forgive.

These spirits form a stronghold by collecting and surrounding themselves with your old emotional wounds. This makes the spirits very hard to root out because if you recognize and confront one of them, it holds up one of your wounds and forces you to relive the pain of the original event. The demonic strategy here is that getting past the memory will be so painful that you'll give up.

This allows the spirits to fester and to continue adding to their wall each time someone hurts you afresh. In fact, they will tempt you to perceive injury where none really exists so that they may make their fortress more secure.

To break a stronghold, it is important to realize that there is no healing in revisiting past wounds. To use a simple physical analogy, if you burned your hand on a stove, you don't get healed by revisiting the stove.

The healing comes when you recognize and cast out the spirits who are hiding behind the wounds. They are what keep your memories fresh and painful. To put it bluntly, your problem is not the 'clod' who stepped all over your ego ten years ago. Your problem starts with an unforgiving spirit.

Deal with the demons you have collected and the scars will heal.