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Mar 04, 2022 08:00am

Lay Down That Offense

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Dear Saints,

You cannot carry an offense and the cross at the same time.

One must be laid down. There is no offense to a Christian. The Holy Spirit, which you are called to be full of, is the Spirit of love and grace. Nothing anyone does to you can or should offend you if you are full of the Holy Spirit.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Jesus wasn’t even offended that they crucified Him. The lost, fallen, and blind don’t know what they’re doing – even if they think they know what they’re doing. In the fullness of the Holy Spirit your love and grace overtakes whatever people do to you.

Consider the words of Daniel Defoe, writer of Robinson Crusoe, in 1719:

“I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed, rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”

Again, don’t take offense. No matter where you are in your walk with God you can always pray to be filled with more of the Holy Spirit anyplace, anytime, as frequently as you desire to be filled and do so . . . “From glory to glory [to glory to glory still]” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Lay down that offense you are nurturing, pick up the cross of Jesus Christ and “enjoy comfortable what God has given you” through the Holy Spirit.