Offense

God has been speaking to me about offense. In Matt 24:10-11(AMP), It speaks of someone who falls away because they have become offended. This is a haughty spirit, that because of the snare or temptation put before them they have become offended and the offense (whatever it is) causes them to respond with their emotions and fall away from the church. When I speak of offense I'm talking about "Christians" who get offended by the Word of God (Truth) and fall away or hold a grudge never accepting the truth of the word of God, or a believer that takes on offense out of jealousy, envy, hurt feelings, etc.


The definition of offense is; resentment, displeasure, scandal, anger...The Greek word is (skandalise) “to put a stumbling block in the way, cause to fall away, be led into sin...

However, if you look closely at the definition of Pride in the dictionary, it states that the characteristics of pride are often categorized as offensive. So in studying offense I find that pride is really the root to offense. We all know that there is a spirit of pride/haughtiness. Proverbs 16:18-19 speaks of a Prideful and haughty Spirit. So to understand offense we should understand the spirit of pride or haughtiness behind it.

Believers CAN be harassed, oppressed or influenced by evil spirits which is why we are warned in the scripture to neither give place (ground) to the devil (Ephesians 4:27). This may not always be the case but I think it certainly is the case many times. When offense comes knocking on our door we have a choice to make. We can choose to be offended or we can choose to recognize the offense and the root of the offense and resist it. The enemy is seeking to destroy the unity among believers and is having great success by influencing us to be offended. Offense is a tool of entrapment used by the enemy, he seeks to beguile the children of God and catch them in his snare (1Timothy 3:6-7).

I dealt with offense several times in my own life last week. For instance, someone made a comment (jokingly) to me that kind of took me by surprise. I thought, wow, if they knew what a struggle that was for me they wouldn’t dare be joking about it and I began to take offense to what they said. Then a light bulb went off and I realized that they weren't intending to hurt me. They didn’t even know my issues but the enemy knew them and jumped on the opportunity to influence me into being offended. It took about 60 seconds for me to realize who was behind those thoughts and to intentionally choose to not be offended.

God is constantly revealing areas in my life that need attention so it shouldn't come to your surprise that I don't always recognize offense quickly. A friend of mine recently said that before we can grow as a body we have to get off the milk and onto the meat. In other words if "we" want the church to grow than the body of Christ has got to grow up and stop walking around offended all the time. I believe God has big plans for "our" church but he is waiting for His body to fully align so that he can put his ultimate plan for PCOG into action. Think about it, how can God completely fill our church, overflowing with lost & hungry people that need to be discipled if we are still babes in Christ ourselves? We have to realize where the offense is really coming from and choose to stand against it.

So how do we respond to offense? I think the first step is to recognize this as spiritual warfare, admit when you have been offended, ask God to reveal truth to you and be willing to accept his truth, confess/repent and forgive. With that being said, let's pray for God to help us in this area daily. I believe that if we really seek the Lord and pray through this prayer list daily that God will do amazing things in our lives individually and our Church as a whole.

Additional Scriptures:
Matthew 18:7
Romans 16:17
John 16:1(AMP)
Acts 24:16
Prayer List
1. Divine Protection for Pastor and Family
2. Holiness
3. Heart like Hur to pray through the battle/strength when weary
4. Revival
5. Steadfastness
6. Surrender/Church about our Fathers business
7. Discernment
8. Worship in Spirit and Truth
9. Trust
10. Pray to be led by the Holy Spirit
11. Resist Discouragement
12. Offense