I came to the revelation this weekend that we not only need to be offended but should desire such offense. This is not meant to come from a hateful place or to be birthed from the enemy in anyway. The word does talk about how people will be offended by it; people will be offended by Christians. In John 6:60-70 the disciples are grumbling and Jesus asks if they are offended, He goes on to explain that the flesh is nothing and what He is offering is the spirit who gives life. So even Jesus offended His disciples with truth of the Spirit and we are called to live like Christ lived, for He lives within us.
One of the definitions of offend says: to cause difficulty, discomfort, or injury. Obviously, I am not referring to injury; I am referring to being uncomfortable or finding things difficult to deal with. I know that I am a sinner, every day I sin, because of the cross and what Jesus did for me on it I am washed clean through His blood and repentance. Just because we know that we are sinners, that we are imperfect; we should not feel comfortable with that sin, it should be something we are weeding more and more out of our lives every day. If we don't continuously weed out the sin from our gardens then we will never produce fruit because it will constantly be overtaken, choked out, and destroyed by the weeds of sin.
I want to be offended on a daily basis, by the word, in prayer, from other believers. I want to continue to grow constantly and if I am not being offended by sin then I am the same as I was yesterday and for me that's not acceptable. Like I have said before I am by no means perfect so although I do my best to strive to be different every day that doesn't mean I actually do it all the time; there are plenty of days I am exactly the same or worse than the day before. Things of God will offend us when we are in sin, when there is sin in our heart and we feel convicted about that sin we feel offended as well. It makes us uncomfortable to admit sin and acknowledge that it exists in our own lives; it is difficult to accept discipline from the Father or be held accountable from a fellow Christian.
No one likes to be told they are wrong, or they have made a mistake, or any other negative thing for that matter. I think the goal here has to be not to think of these things in a negative light, we need to recognize that if we are offended in this way we are in fact growing in Christ and that should over joy us. If we offend one another it should be in the way that Jesus offended the disciples by teaching truth through the spirit, there is a way to cause offense that Jesus would never do, I think we have all been offended in this way before. Sin should be so offensive to us that we just can't stand but to make a change in ourselves to get it out of the way of our relationship with Him.
Sometimes people are offended in the wrong way too, sometimes people allow themselves to be offended by things they do not understand. I am guilty of this type of offense too, I have been offended by people who act in ways I do not understand at the time as well as I'm sure I have offended others in this way. This happens a lot with moves of the Holy Spirit, many people just do not understand what is going on, they don't believe that what they are seeing is genuine; they don't understand why it isn't happening to them if it is real. This is especially true in manifestations of the Holy Spirit; when people see others shaking, convulsing, laughing uncontrollably, falling on the floor, being healed, they immediately think it is ridiculous and are caught in unbelief. I was one of these people previously, I didn't believe in this kind of thing and I definitely didn't understand it.
When you finally let your guard down and just say yes to the Spirit and allow Him to move in you, no matter what it looks like, you will know that these things are very much real. It doesn't mean we will all experience the Holy Spirit in such outwardly dramatic ways, but even if it doesn't look like that on the outside it will feel like that on the inside. He wants to encounter us with a fresh touch of His love and in a new way, to renew our love and passion for Him, we just have to say yes and let Him move in ANY way He wants to. I think, actually I know, you will find that if you let go of your expectations of how, why, when, what, etc; if we just expect Him to move, that is exactly what He will do. When we put Him in a box and wait for Him to come into our box of expectations He may never show up because you are waiting for your way instead of seeking His.
In Christ's Love,
Reed Eden
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