How Offense Leads To Anger, Bitterness And Unforgiveness

Offense is a fiery dart we must resist. Yes, there are times when people hurt us and they should be told when they do. Telling them gets the hurt off your mind and gives them a chance to make what they did right. But then let it go and forget about it. To keep remembering it and thinking about it is what causes it to go to the next stage.

The enemy most often will try to offend you through those closest to you - and in an area where you have been hurt before, because the hurt is much deeper when he can do that. The closer the gun when the shot is fired, the more damage the bullet does when it enters.

If you stop the spirit of offense when it first attacks, you won't have to deal with anger, resentment and bitterness from the offense later. And of course, unforgiveness.

John Bevere said in his book, The Bait of Satan, which is about offense, that how you respond to offense determines your future. And that is so true.

The most effective ways I have discovered to stopping offense before it starts is

#1 - Develop your love walk. How strong your love walk is depends on a couple of different things and I bring this up because many of us beat ourselves up when we don't walk in enough love thinking its a personal failing, but you know what? It may just be a lack of healing from the past.

* Your love walk depends partly on how much understanding you have of who God is

* Your love walk depends partly on whether you have a "Dad Filter." Our mind automatically associates like things. God is a father, so we associate Him with the dad we have or had here on earth. The problem is this. God is a perfect father and earth fathers are not perfect. Since we met earth dad first, we see Daddy God through an earth dad filter. This can cause bigger problems than you could ever imagine. If earth dad was always angry at us because we never measured up, we will constantly be trying to measure up and expecting Daddy God to be mad at us, too, since that's what we think Dads act like. If earth Dad constantly beat or punished us, we will always be looking for chastisement from Daddy God and expecting that next beating. See how it works?

* Your love walk depends partly on where you are in healing from past pain and woundedness. There is a mistaken belief out there that as soon as we get saved, we're automatically healed of everything and we're just perfect from then on and that if we have any past woundedness, we're a bad Christian. I'm here to say we're NOT bad Christians, we're HUMAN christians and God works us through the healing process a little at a time to heal us from all the enemy has perpertrated on us through all the other imperfect people around us. We must be patient with ourselves and patient with each other and this is not easy on either count. It took years to get this wounded and it will likely take years to get healed. We need to have realistic expectations. Yes, God can and does heal instantaneously and we've all seen that happen, but more often, He takes us through the journey so we can recognize woundedness in our brothers and sisters and help THEM on THEIR journeys. You can't do that if you're healed in two seconds.