Not Living in a Spirit of Offense By Latta Claire and Mallory Phillips

Not Living in A Spirit of Offense

A friend and I have both recognized how easy it is to dwell on the things people do and how easily we turn it around as they were so rude, they do not like us, I now don’t like them. We often think that people are out there to hurt us- which in some situations is true. However, many times we neglect to go deeper and realize that often people are struggling with hurts in their personal lives, and it comes across hurtful to us. Mallory and I are going to dive a little deeper in this and hopefully provide some helpful tools to help you stop living in the spirit of offense.

Mallory

A lot of times if someone offends us or misunderstands us it instantly ruins our day. But when we stand confidently on the truth of our identity being in Christ, this should make us unshakeable and unmoved by the negative opinions or actions of others.

We often allow the actions and words of others to impact our lives so much and this causes us to be incredibly unhealthy, and forces us to rest our identity on how others treat us.

The fact is that others’ intentions, words, and actions towards us are not always to be rude or hurtful. Many times it is because of circumstances they are going through in their lives, or because we misinterpret situations. It is so important that we offer grace to them and not live in a continual cycle of offense.

Additionally, the world will never offer us peace, but He will. Jesus is the place where we can find peace from this earthly struggle. He equips us with tools such as peace so that we can go about our days dwelling on who He is instead of continually dwelling on offenses.

Latta-Claire

Before I begin, I want to say that I have a lot of words to say because this is something I am currently walking through. This is not something I have figured out perfectly. I still struggle with this, but I am so glad God offers us tools so that we can walk in freedom from this!

Soooo here we go!

As I was reading through Galatians 5 and seeing the fruit of the Spirit, I honestly had never considered the verses that were above it, so I am going to share those with you. Also, living in offense and strife is a tactic Satan uses to further us from Jesus and distract us from the good life God has for us.

Galatians 5:19 states, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Living in hurt and strife is NOT the life God has for us.

Galatians 5:22 states, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Living in peace IS the life God has for us.

If we were all to be very honest with ourselves, there are a lot of moments throughout our days where there are opportunities for us to be offended. Satan also knows our weak spots and knows how to get us worked up fast.

Women tend to show emotions more and feel things more deeply and can let little things negatively influence our day- ruin our day. We take the tone of someone’s voice, or the way someone is not friendly to us, or the feeling of being left out, or the lack of a response to a text message, and then become deeply offended by this.

Oftentimes we let it fester and it ruins our days, weeks, and even years.

I have learned that when offense tries to creep in and I am tempted to dwell in the hurt, that I instead say out loud, “I will not be offended, I will not let this ruin my day.” (If I am in a public place and cannot say this then I repeat it to myself at least 10 times.) The words we speak to ourselves and over ourselves are powerful! The power of life and death are in the tongue, so what we say and profess MATTERS.

The other day there were a few things that I was allowing myself to be deeply offended by and then I felt the Lord say, “Claire, what are you doing to yourself… you are making yourself miserable.” I truly was causing misery upon myself and upon my week by dwelling on things and living in offense.

If we really step back and reevaluate how many times we are offended… it is probably more than we would like to admit. While the words and actions of others often sting and hurt (and many times this is unintentional- again people are fighting battles and going through struggles we will often never know about) we do not have to take on the hurt. Start saying to yourself, “I will not be offended, I will not let this ruin my day.” When we start operating in offense, we will begin to analyze every little thing people say to us and then be offended by every little thing. But God has not called us to live in strife or hurt. God has called us to live a full and abundant life (John 10:10) and how can we do this if we are walking in offense all the time?

When I am tempted to be offended, I say that phrase to myself over and over and pray for the fruit of the Spirit to fill my life. I think we can also in a moment of offense reach out to someone or encourage someone, to take the attention off of ourselves!

We do not have to live in hurt or strife. God has a great life for each one of us and we can break the cycle of offense by not letting the enemy influence us, and instead run after truth and place our identity in Christ.