Hello friends I want to take a few minutes over the next few weeks and share with you on the subject of Offense, Unforgiveness, and Bitterness.
First I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have reached out to Liela and I after our departure from Crossroads. That said I also feel the hurt from the number of people who have expressed feelings of Anger, Hurt and Disappointment in our departure.
Today I want to go on this journey with each of you towards wholeness and healing. I do this for two reasons:
This is a process I am walking through with my own family. I must first pastor my family well and lead them through the process of shaking of offense to prevent unforgiveness and ultimately a root of bitterness.
Secondly, because I love each one of you and I recognize that for many of you there may be an offense to you by our leaving that if not addressed could lead you to unforgiveness and bitterness.
So let’s start with the first thing that could happen: Offense.
Jesus told us in Luke 17:1 “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!”
Two quick points here for our hearts today:
It is impossible that no offenses should come: Offenses are bound to happen. You’re not immune, I am not immune. Coming to saving faith in Christ is not a vaccination against offense.
It is possible that even through you or me offense could come to another.
Now before we break this down any further let me layout for you that there are four basic categories of offense. And there are two realities through which we experience those offenses:
You feel offended but no real offense has actually been perpetrated against you.
This usually is caused by the following:
You either have a previous offense that turned to unforgiveness and ultimately bitterness. We will talk about those two in the next videos; or:
You have been stained by someone else’s bitterness and it has tainted you, this causing you to view the world through a stained lens.
You are offended by something that actually is an offense against you.
Neither of these realities changes what is expected of us as believers. Whether you truly have been slighted or wronged in some way or whether you simply perceived that you had been sighted or wronged in some way plays absolutely no bearing on how we are to respond to offense.
There are really four root causes of offense, and really, all of the offenses we see and experience in our lives can be boiled down to one of these four things:
Someone said something you feel like they shouldn’t have.
Someone didn’t say something that you felt they should have said but they didn’t.
Someone did something you think they shouldn’t have.
Someone didn’t do something that you think they should have done.
That’s it, it is really that simple, 4 things that you can boil every offense you encounter down to. 4 simple things.
Let me just stop right here for a moment. you are living right now is the most significant epoch of offense the world has ever seen. in every sphere, political, cultural, and spiritual the level of offense is immense. You do you but don’t judge me. Don’t speak the truth, only align with my opinion and if not I am offended. Say or do something my subjective opinion does not agree with and I am offended.
From a spiritual perspective Paul warned Timothy of this very condition is 2 Timothy 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth”
In the New Living Translation it reads like this: 3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth”
My friends we are living in this very age, seeing this passage of scripture played out before our very eyes.
Here is a heart check question each and every one of us needs to ask ourselves: “Am I unwilling to hear the truth of God’s word and only want to listen to teaching that does not make me evaluate myself and my ideals and actions?”
The Psalmist in Psalm 139:23 encourages us to pray this way: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.”
So let’s jump back here to Luke 17:1 and Jesus words “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!”
The word Jesus uses here for offense is “Skandalon” and it means: a trapstick, a crooked stick on which the bait is fastened; which the animal strikes against, and so springs the trap.
If you spring the trap and find yourself ensnared there is only one way out from it: Forgiveness.
In our next video I am going to walk through with you what happens when we do not forgive when we talk about
Matthew 6 and Matthew 18 and unforgiveness.
Let me give you a little teaser towards that video and it is this phrase: “You OWE me an apology” This one phrase sets up the whole condition of unforgiveness.
Let me also encourage you today if you find yourself in the sprung trap of offense you ask Holy Spirit to reveal to you right now whom you are holding an offense toward that you need to forgive and forgive them.
More on that in the next video on Unforgiveness.