The smallest organ in the body, yet the strongest. It can captivate an audience with its words or exhaust us with meaningless rhetoric. It can lead masses of people to build out of a storm or it can lead masses of people to riot and become the storm. It can lift us up out of the pit of despair or throw us in the pit of despair and put the lid on it. It can bring healing or it can bring disease, it can be life giving or life taking. It can build or it can destroy, its words have influence for good or bad. It can instruct us or destruct us, it can be loving and bring forgiveness and reconciliation or it can be hateful and bring revenge. It can bring peace or it can bring chaos, it can be a source of nutrition or it can be a poison. How we choose to use it impacts our lives and those around us and with it we say, "I love you" or we say, "I hate you"
With it we sing praise and cursing, with it we proclaim goodness and mercy, and bitterness and revenge. With it we build others up and with it we tear them down, with it we say we are someone and with it we say we are a no-body. With it we say we can do it and we say we can do nothing. With it we verbalize love or abuse and with it we bite the bait of offense when we say, "I'm offended".
What we say has a bearing on a-lot of our outcomes and how we choose to respond to offense will determine our future. God can turn your mouth around when you let him transform your heart. When your heart is transformed God washes your mouth out with the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit and your mouth gets cleaner and is being transformed into a new tongue. You learn a new language, and it comes with a teacher, a tutor, the Holy Spirit and you are going to learn to talk differently, walk differently, and act differently.
Date: 03/10/19
Scripture: James 1:19-21 and James 3:3-10
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From Series: "Triggered: Overcoming Offense"
It destroys families, marriages, and even the work of the church to make disciples, the one thing that Jesus said must be done. It takes away any successes and advancement towards unity and fellowship, it turns love into hatred and peace into conflict. But that's not the worst of it, the worst thing it does is takes you away from the will of God for your life! What is this terrible, nasty, evil thing that causes all of this destruction? It's called, offense! Being offended is Satan's bait to trip you up and cause you to walk away from all that God has for you in life. When we define the word, "offense" the Bible says that it is an injury or wrong done to another person. It can be a stumbling block or a cause of temptation.
Battling the deadly trap of offense is the most important confrontation with truth you will ever encounter in your lifetime because at the core of the issue of offense is the difficulty with overcoming being offended. it often leaves us with resentment, hatred, and harboring unhealthy criticism for another. Satan the enemy of our very souls lays out strategically his most deceptive and deadly traps through offense. This is Satan best bait when enticing us to walk away from God's will in our lives and in the life of the church and no Christian is exempt from this deadly trap.
The good news is this: offense itself is not deadly if it stays in the trap. It is when we take the bait and consume it and feed it to our hearts that we become offended. When people are offended they produce a lot of poisonous fruit that wreaks havoc on all those around them. Things like, hurt, anger, outrage, jealousy, resentment, strife, bitterness, hatred, envy, and unhealthy criticism. What is even more dangerous is the pride in people's hearts that holds them back from repentance when they have taken the bait of being offended.
Remember, Jesus said that it is impossible to live this life and not have the opportunity to be offended (Luke 17:1) You can find the power to forgive and be released from the trap of offense! Join us on Sunday's starting January 20th for "Triggered: Overcoming Offense."
