HEY MIKE AND THE OTHERS~~~~~~~~~ BEING UNOFFENDABLE LESSON~~~~~~~~ READ easy for a 5th grader or BLONDE Unoffendable "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." —Ezekiel 36:26 God has a new heart for us that cannot be offended, an “unoffendable” heart. Beloved, possessing an unoffendable heart is neither an option nor a luxury; it’s not a little thing. Consider: Jesus warns that, as we near the end of the age, a majority of people will be offended to such a degree that they fall away from the faith. Listen carefully to His warning: "Then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another . . . and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." —Matthew 24:10–12 KJV “Many” will be offended; the love of “many” will grow cold. My prayer is that we will hear His words with holy fear. When we allow an offense to remain in our hearts, it causes serious spiritual consequences. In the above verse Jesus named three dangerous results: betrayal, hatred and cold love. When we are offended with someone, even someone we care for, we must go to them. Otherwise, we begin to betray that relationship, talking maliciously behind their back to others, exposing their weaknesses and sins. We may mask our betrayal by saying we are just looking for advice or counsel, but when we look back, we see we have spoken negatively to far too many people. Our real goal was not to get spiritual help for ourselves, but to seek revenge toward the one who offended us. How is such action not a manifestation of hatred? For an offended soul, cold love, betrayal and hatred go hand-in-hand. People don’t usually stumble over boulders; they stumble over stones, relatively small things. It may be that the personality of someone in authority bothers us, and soon we are offended. Or, a friend or family member fails to meet our expectations, and we take an offense into our soul. Beloved, if we will “endure to the end” (Matt 24:13), we will have to confront the things that bother us. When Jesus warns that we need endurance, He is saying that it is easier to begin the race than finish it. Between now and the day you die, there will be major times of offense that you will need to overcome. You might be in such a time right now. Do not minimize the danger of harboring an offense. No one plans on falling away; no one ever says, “Today I think I’ll try to develop a hardened, cold heart.” Such things enter our souls through stealth and it is only naiveté that assumes it couldn’t happen to us. I know many people who consistently become offended about one thing or another. Instead of dealing with the offenses, these people carry them until the weight disables their walk with God. You may be doing fine today, but I guarantee you, tomorrow something will happen that will inevitably disappoint or wound you; some injustice will strike you, demanding you retaliate in the flesh. The Root Of Offense An offense can strike at our virtues or sins, our values or our pride. It can penetrate and wound any dimension of the soul, both good and evil. I once brought a series of messages about gossip. Most people saw their sin and repented, but a core group of gossips were greatly offended and ultimately left the church. When the Holy Spirit exposes sin in our soul, if we refuse the opportunity to repent, we often become offended at the person who brought the teaching. Instead of humbling our hearts, we are outraged at the pastor or teachers in the church. Truthfully, most of the time, I have no idea who specifically needs to hear what I’m teaching, but God knows. Paul told Timothy to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” (see 2 Tim 4:2). He didn’t say, “exhort, exhort, exhort,” but exhortation is what we receive in most churches. Certainly, we need to be encouraged, but there are also times, beloved, when we need to be reproved and rebuked. Today, there are preachers who are afraid to preach truth for fear people will react and leave the church. The end result is a church of easily offended people who cannot grow beyond their inability to accept correction. People don’t change by exhortation alone. There are areas in all of us that need to be confronted and disciplined. The leader who refuses to discipline and correct those in sin is in disobedience to God. He is unable to lead people into any truly transforming changes in their lives; they will not obtain Christlikeness if they cannot be corrected. We need to become a people who say, “Lord, show me what needs to change in me.” I’m talking about growing up. A wise man will receive a rebuke and he will prosper. But a fool rejects his father’s discipline (see Prov 15:5). Personal Offense An offense can wound our pride when we are not recognized for our good works or ministry. Many years ago, when we were young in the ministry, we attended a leaders’ conference in California. Toward the end of the gathering, the main leader decided to personally greet each minister and wife. He greeted the couple on our right and then turned to his staff to ask a question. A moment later, when he turned around, he bypassed us and went to the couple on our left. Everyone around us saw we were apparently ignored. We were embarrassed and offended. But my wife wisely observed that we could allow this thing to hurt us or we could see it as an investment in sensitivity toward other people’s feelings. The offense taught us how others feel when they are ignored. Do you see this? You must make that offense become an opportunity to become more Christlike. The occasions for taking offense are practically endless. Indeed, we are daily given the opportunity to either be offended by something or to possess an unoffendable heart. The Lord’s promise is that He’s given us a new heart: a soft, entreatable heart that can be filled with His Spirit and abound with His love. Practical Steps Toward Possessing Christ’s Heart Through the years, I have learned some things about the nature of Christ and how He handles the offenses of this world. Most of these I am still working on, but to a real degree they are living realities in my heart. One thing I’ve learned is to humble myself when I’m criticized; instead of reacting or defending myself, I try to listen and consider what I’m being told. I’ve been wrong enough times in life to know that perhaps the person speaking to me is right. They actually may see something about me in an area where I’ve been blind. Of course, being confronted by someone is never joyful. Indeed, when an individual finally has enough nerve to openly speak about what bothers them, their approach, which should be in gentleness, may come across as nervous and unnecessarily confrontational. Yet, if they are even partially right in their opinion, we can make good use of their complaint. Humility listens even to a harshly spoken word and, without reacting, rescues the truth within the criticism. The result is that we discover an area we had not seen and, instead of being offended, we become more Christlike. It might be that a criticism is not true and a person’s opinion about us seems almost insulting. However, their words can still be helpful in that they may spotlight a weakness in how we present ourselves to others. We could have right motives, but be less than perfect in our communication. Here, too, we gain insight and make progress from another’s criticism. We can always improve our approach so that we are more sensitive to how others perceive us. If an attack is not based on truth, and the person is simply a source of persecution and slander, how can we grow in that circumstance? Recall, Jesus tells us to “pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44) and “bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28). Thus, instead of being offended by something that was obviously vicious, we grow in the love and intercession of Christ who, as He died, prayed, “Father, forgive them.” Remember, Jesus said offenses were inevitable. He warned that we were going to have frequent, almost daily, opportunities to be offended by the injustices of life. When life cuts us, do we bleed anger and revenge, or do we look to God and appropriate the heart of Christ? There will always be attacks from misguided, even demonically possessed, people. The issue isn’t whether or not we are wounded, but what we do when we are hurt. When we fail to process the wounding as Christ would, anger floods our souls, and the wound degrades into bitterness. Clinically, we are offended, and a form of spiritual paralysis immobilizes our walk with God. I want to clarify that there are some things in life that demand our outrage. Brutal killings, child abuse or blatant sin in the world around us should create an appropriate disturbance in our spirits. Ultimately, though, our reaction must be vented to God in prayer. The outrage must spur either intercession or action on our part to stop the injustice; even in this process, we must guard our hearts. What does it profit us if we gain the victory, but lose our capacity to love? Remember always, God is causing all things to work together for good in your life. If you know His goal in everything is to create the likeness of Christ in you, then no weapon formed against you will prosper. You will possess the unoffendable heart of Christ. Let’s pray: Lord, forgive me for being so easily offended and for carrying offenses. Father, my heart is often foolish, weak and defensive. Yet I trust in Your promise that I am a new creation. With faith I ask, grant me the unoffendable heart of Jesus Christ. Amen. —Adapted from the book, It’s Time To End Church Splits by Francis Frangipane frangipane.org
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 17:59:01 +0000
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