One of the insidious, deceptive ways that the enemy is gaining ground in our hearts is by causing us to become offended by little and big things. To become offended means to feel hurt, angry, bitter, or upset by something that has been said or done by someone else, or by a group.
It could also mean to feel wronged by someone.

I am not speaking of an “offence” where there is a break of a law or an illegal act. For this, you could be found guilty and fined for the offence.
Rather, I am talking about the hurt, pain, resentment, anger, bitterness
we carry around due to the behaviour and often times brokenness of other people towards us. We often say “hurting people hurt others.”

There are those who get offended very easily and those who tolerate a lot before they get offended. Whichever category we fall into, offence is not a path that you want to walk on as a child of the most high God.
We sometimes feel that there are different levels of hurts. There are those who quarrel and keep malice when it’s a big issue, and then when it’s a much smaller matter, some feel offended, and carry the person and the deed in their hearts. They find they are hurting and usually react to them from the place of pain.

Before I continue, I would like to use the word “hurt” to refer to sin, pain, offence and bitterness.

The Lord really does not classify hurts for us. Our Heavenly Father does not give us any choice, as to whether a hurt is big or small. Our Father does not decide with us if a hurt was unfair, or not deserved at all. The Lord does not make any suggestions as to what to do with the hurts, but, He simply commands us to forgive those who hurt, sin or offend us.

The Lord as He always does, went on to show by example, what He desires we do. In spite of all the flogging and shame, while on the Cross, Jesus prayed asking His Father to forgive them, because they didn’t know what they were doing.

In teaching His disciples how to pray, (the Lord’s Prayer),  He also taught them that God’s forgiveness of them was dependent on how much they forgave others.
It’s obvious that our Creator knows that He didn’t make our hearts to carry hurts and bitterness so advised us in Proverbs 4 v 23, to keep and guard our hearts with all vigilance. Because out of our hearts flow the springs of life. Our Father knows that we can’t afford to allow our hearts become tainted in any way by hurts, offence, bitterness, attitudes and thoughts. We thus need to learn to forgive easily and completely. We have to constantly search our hearts to see if we have buried hurts there. David did this by asking the Lord to search him thoroughly (Psalm 139 v 1-5).

I realise that living a lifestyle of forgiveness is very difficult to do as relationships with people throw all sorts of hurts and pain our way. This is why we have to turn to the Holy Spirit for help as the Lord does not provide any alternatives, or ” get out ” clauses. Sometimes we say this isn’t fair, but life was never meant to be fair. What is fair about Jesus suffering on the Cross for you and me so we get saved…?
We also need to realise that our forgiveness is not saying that the person did not do what is wrong. Our forgiving them is simply releasing them to Father God, and releasing ourselves from holding unto them. Holding on only keeps us in bondage as seen in the story of the unforgiving servant told by Jesus in Matthew 18 v 21-35.

Sometimes, I go to the Lord over and over again, when I am struggling with letting the hurt or offence go. Other times, I stay in His Presence, asking Him to love on me and help me hand over the hurt and pain to Him. When you really have handed something over, it should no longer be in your hands to affect your heart. You need to continue in this light, until you can pray for the person from your heart, bless them and let them go. Thinking about them, no longer causes you pain. You need to be able to relate to them with a clean heart, knowing you have let them go.
Recently someone asked me about “forgetting” and “trust” as regards to this issue. My answer was that you can ask the Holy Spirit to build these up again if you chose to, but you don’t have to.

So Dear ones, let us be aware of the deceptive way that the enemy steals our joy by getting us frustrated and hurt by people’s actions, thereby causing us to walk down the path of offence. Jesus desires that we live in freedom. Offence only serves to distort this freedom.
Offence not only clogs the heart, but also makes us respond wrongly to people. When King Saul and David returned from battle, and the women sang songs praising David over King Saul, it made Saul so jealous that he allowed the evil spirit in, which tormented Him. The Bible is full of these stories where offence has taken people down its path. Jesus lived a life where He was un-offendable. We need to ask daily for His help in this area of our lives.

Exercise……

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any offence in it.

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any offence in it.

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any offence in it.

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any offence in it.

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and expose any offence in it.

Amen.

Ps. Please write to tell us how this exercise went and if you got some breakthrough.