Eyes Wide Open

I've been re-reading John Bevere’s book, “The Bait of Satan.  Living free from Offence". If you haven’t read it I highly recommend it. But be warned, it is horrendously challenging!

I am not sure it is possible to be a human being and not encounter opportunities to be offended on a day-to-day basis, whether it is moments when someone is rude or unkind to us, or when we get overlooked or put down,  a stroppy email, a sassy text message, a multi-layered snide comment … The list could go on and on.

Is it possible that nice Christians like me and you could be practised in the art of taking offence more than we realise? How shocking and yet how uncomfortably viable!

So what do we do about it? First of all, when we feel hurt, we need to be real that we feel hurt. We can take a moment to bring that to God and ask Him to heal our hearts. We can choose to forgive the person, and we need to speak out that we choose to lay down any offence that came into our heart with the hurt.

Sometimes, let’s be honest, we are offended because people don’t act the way we think they should act, and they don’t respond how we would respond. They don’t do what we expect. We feel hurt, but perhaps we are simply offended they didn’t behave as we would or the way we think they should.

Challenging stuff!

The enemy is on a mission with offence in today’s world and we need to have our eyes wide open and see what he is doing.

We can’t fight this battle on our own. We can’t keep our heart from offence by our own good efforts. We need Jesus and the power of His cross to empower us by His Spirit to each day. We need to see where we are picking up offence and we need to have the humility to acknowledge that and lay it down.

If you are challenged by this topic, you are not alone. Don’t be discouraged, but be inspired. God has so much more for us if we humble our hearts and let our eyes be wide open.