Today the church has an immigration crisis! People who have been offended and have left because they were hurt, offended by someone or something, a decision, a mistreatment, so they left went to another place not ever dealing fully with their offended state only to get offended again and leave to find another place.Church hoping is creating a crisis of immigration in the church where people are in danger of becoming spiritual vagabonds, treating churches like their choices of a restaurant, where when something doesn't sit well and there's a bad taste in their mouth and the service didn't measure up to their expectations they just pick-up and move on.
What are we to do? Well if we were to put out the bat signal for help and called on batman could he offer something? If we had a bat signal and turned it on and Batman and Robin would show up, the first words out of Robin’s mouth would be, "Holy Nomads, Batman!"revival in the land isn't going to come through vagabonds, it will come through a community of believers who are fully sold out to God and his mission in the world in spite of the hurt that it might bring upon them.
Date: 02/10/19
Scripture: I Samuel 24:1-24
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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."
