Psalm 119:165 AMPC
Great peace have they who love Your law; nothing shall offend them or make them stumble.
“Love is not easily offended.” (1 Corinthians 13:5)
Offences are indeed fences blocking our way to God's love! They are obstacles on the assault course of life.
An interesting experiment to try - count the number of times that you are tempted to be offended today!
There will be many!
Even if you are in solitary lockdown, the enemy will bring past incidents to mind in order to dig up old hurts and regurgitate the feeling of offence all over again.
A measure of spiritual maturity is how we deal with these offences.
There is a master key given to us in the verse from Psalm 119:
Love for the Word of God.
It doesn't mean you have to be a book worm, for Jesus is The Word made flesh!
John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So the more we focus on Jesus, the more peace we will have and the less likely we are to be offended!
Jesus laid aside His Kingly Glory and humbled Himself:
Philippians 2:8 AMPC
And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!
It's very hard to be offended when you follow Jesus' example and humble yourself.
Most offences stem from pride and considered entitlement.
The prevailing wind in society today is that: "You mustn't offend me, I have human rights"!
However, before God, we live by grace and forgiveness only!
Actually, the only human right we have before the Lord is the right to be condemned by our own sin.
Some will be offended by the above sentence and claim that they have no sin.
If you're offended ask yourself what is the root cause of that offence.
It's time to get over ourselves and gain the GREAT peace of loving Jesus so that nothing offends us.
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