Seems to me that we are a people that are easily offended. Have you attempted to talk to someone about the upcoming election? The peaceful world of long ago has left us with angry and entitled people on every front. We see it in on the internet, the freeway, in our homes, churches, on the street, in grocery stores…
It’s a great day…you walk into a public place , smiling and enthusiastic, and someone says, “What’s wrong with you?” Maybe, it’s just California, but I don’t think so. Verbal dissatisfaction and public controversies are common place. Words are spoken unguarded. We are women and we love words! One of the leading problems among women in maintaining relationships is the abuse of the tongue.
“The tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit.” It’s, also, a source of offense. To be offended is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed on us by someone else! “Great peace have they that love your law and nothing will offend them.”Psa. 119: 165
We are responsible for five areas of our life without excuse, rationalization or wrong response.
1. Words
2. Actions
3. Attitudes
4. Thoughts
5. Motives – reveal our character; the why we do what we do.
I am accountable before God for what I say. If somebody offends me, it is my problem. They are only reflecting a need in my life, if I respond wrongly. When Christ, the great physician, applies a knife to my heart and there is pain…there is evidence of live flesh! My need to die to my flesh is exposed. God sees what I cannot see, and knows exactly where to place the knife. He cuts away that which we are most reluctant to give up! And how it hurts.
God does not attack in us that which is lifeless and unresponsive…It is the live flesh that must die. There is only room for one of us to be alive and in control! The remedy to my problem isn’t cure; it is to get out of the way…it is death to my selfish expectations.
“Great peace have they that love my law and nothing will offend them.” Psa. 119: 165
How easily are you offended?
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
