Snared By Offenses

"Offended," is an unpleasant mental state that distracts you from conscious thinking, and leads to emotions such as frustration and anger!

To live all your life, resentful, always annoyed and offended...and choosing to stay that way, only denies the very nature of the salvation that you have received.

It will kill your joy and your peace! You become isolated and divided, behind a fence, which will never lead you to ANY kind of victory!

The reason it is so hard for some of you to stay happy, is because you are hiding behind all of those-offenses.

Signs That You Are Offended:

• Withdrawing from relationships and fellowship
  An offended person will often decide to stay away and withhold any support and contribution they used to make.

• Resentment
  Resentment is harboring animosity against a person or group of people who you feel has mistreated you.
  It may also be unresolved anger you have over a negative event which occurred in the past. Resentment is bad because it consumes you of joy and peace of the mind. It possesses a self destructive power. Resentment can often lead to bitterness which then leads to fatigue, backaches, ulcers, high blood pressure.

• Lack of trust
  Offended people lose trust for everybody. A church member that is offended can lose the respect and trust and esteem he or she has for the leader. The offended person may also encounter difficulty in submission to authority and will often develop destructive independent spirit. The person just refuses to communicate.

• Betrayal
  Offense can lead to betrayal of love, friendship as well as disloyalty. Many people because they are offended will betray the trust of their previously close friends. Ahithophel betrayed David and Judas betrayed Jesus because of offense.

• Rebellion
  Offended people often develop a rebellious spirit and go against the established order. Absalom rebelled against his father’s David’s kingship due to offense. He succeeded momentarily in overthrowing his father but he died such a shameful death eventually.

• Recollection of Events
  Offended people also seem to have very good memory. However it is always selective because they always remember wrongs committed against them. The painful memories become a mental picture they permanently carry around. This is major blessing blocker.
  

As a believer, your adversary wants you to miss all the good things that people have done, and drive the offense, deeper and deeper inside your subconscious mind; until the offenses become deep rooted, and act as a guarded, barbed-wire fence around your conscious mind! This “prison of unchecked resentment" only leads to...regret!
We are to drop the offenses and be reconciled, or it will NOT end well with you!

Jesus makes it very clear that offenses will come. He also makes it very clear that they must not come from us! The danger is that if we allow offense in our life, it blocks God’s blessing because it will cut us off from the power of God.

Great men and women in history have missed golden opportunities because they allowed offenses to dictate their responses and actions at crucial points in their lives.

A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city. Proverbs 18:19 

This means that it is a lot easier to conquer or win a strong city than reconcile a brother who is offended.

Offense is dangerous and it can attract and allow dark, evil and anti-god spirits into your life. Once offense enters your heart, it must be rooted out completely, otherwise it can come back to claim victims and do more damage.

Anywhere there is offense, betrayal is an inevitable consequence. Offense provokes and triggers betrayal. Whenever you feel like betraying somebody, it may well be that you are offended. It is common to find people who used to be on fire and supportive, suddenly now turn and become an antagonist. This is usually because they are offended.

John was put in prison by Herod because he told Herod it was not good that he took his brother’s wife. John knew that Jesus was the Anointed One, but he was offended because Jesus didn’t immediately come to His rescue. He questioned whether Jesus was really the Messiah because he was imprisoned and expected Jesus to get him out of jail (Matthew 11:2-6).

If offense could turn John the Baptist, the forerunner and cousin of Jesus into a doubter, we need to watch out for offense in our own lives and stamp it out as soon as possible.

Matt 24:10  says, "And then many will be offended, will betray one another and will hate one another.

If God dropped the charges against you...then you must do likewise!

Ephesians 4:30-32, further states- ‘And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

IN CONCLUSION:

"Give no foothold to the devil." Ephesians 4:26-27

Being free of all offenses, is the beginning...of “true peace, harmony and balance,” in your life and relationships-both with people, as well as Jehovah God."