Dealing with offenses
I’m Offended
“Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!”
Matthew 18:7
Jesus speaking here has given us a key truth in being able to deal properly with offences. This truth is that offences against us are inevitable. There is no such place as a place of no offences. God allows offences to come into your life to test you and to help you grow; the key is how we respond to offence in our lives. There is a difference in being offended (what others do to us), and taking offence (what we do to ourselves). The difference between the two is how we respond to it.
The Biblical response to someone offending us is to forgive them. Matthew 18:21-22 says, “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”
Peter thought that forgiving someone for offending him seven times was a great feat of Christian growth, but Jesus told him to forgive seventy times more than his best guess. The term seventy times seven was meant to imply an infinite number of times. Jesus was in effect saying to Peter, be offended and forgive, but do not ever take offence.
To take offence means that we put on the air of being offended. When we take offence we want everyone to know we are not happy with them. It is not Biblical to act in this manner. Allow me to use an illustration: when a child gets offended at their parents and doesn’t know how to deal with it properly they will throw themselves down on the floor, kick and scream, cry and whine, we call this a temper tantrum. When an adult takes offence they act much the same way, only in a more socially acceptable manner.
The heart of the matter is the same, they puff up like a horny toad to let everyone around them know that they are unhappy. The truth of the matter is that Biblically happiness is your choice.
