1 Peter 2:8 A stone that causes men to stumble, and a rock that trips them up. They stumble by disobeying the message: they were destined for this. Of the many names that we call Jesus one we never hear used is the Rock of Offense or the stumbling stone! I would like to share with you guys the sin of offense today and hopefully compel all of us to look inward and see if we are walking in this offense, and if so, we clear our hearts and minds of this sin and walk forward in the Spirit. I asked a good friend of mine last week if he had ever been offended by Jesus, to which he quickly replied what do you mean? He said I love Jesus how could I ever be offended by Him? I responded that I love Him too, but have found myself offended by His Word many times and in fact the whole reason for my asking was to share my struggles with somebody I trusted. He asked me to give him some examples of what I meant, so I started to relate a few to him. The last word I sent out I confessed my struggle with having two special needs children and the hardship that goes along with them and said I have been offended at this circumstance in my life many times. I also told him of the struggles in my marriage and added that this too has brought offense into my walk with the Lord, and then continuing on, I brought up the fact that I am deeply concerned over the conditions in this world such has hunger, poverty and the lack of justice that seem not to bother most believers and that offends me to the bone. Why cant I automatically accept these things in my life and convert them over to the spirit? This is a question that I ask myself often, in fact every time I get tripped up on the Rock of Offense! The answer is that I would rather deal with Christ as Savoir, the Good Lord or the Light than I had the Rock of Offense or the stumbling block. If we are honest, we are often offended not only by others around us, but by Jesus Himself and it causes us to miss the mark that Christ has set for us: not to mention that we are missing life in the Kingdom right here, right now! The Word goes on to say in Verse 11 Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents to abstain from fleshly desires that war against you. We are clearly told to be temporary residents or aliens in this land as well as in this culture, but we have set down our stakes to claim this world and culture for our own, and in the process started the war inside ourselves that God told us to abstain from. When I do a check up from the neck up, I find that most of the issues I struggle with come from taking things that should only be dealt with in the spirit and converting them into the flesh. Isaiah 8:14 Calls Jesus a stumbling block as well that will cause many to trip. The main problem is that we dont realize that we are offended by Jesus. We look for anyone or anybody we can to put the offense on. Instead of being open and transparent with our self and God, we take offense inward and spew it outward to everybody in our life which plants the seed for the root of bitterness. Hebrews 12:15 If we allow the root of bitterness to spring up in our life it defiles many and causes us to fail the grace that God pours out for us. Think about how easy it is to pray for Gods grace one minute and deny grace to somebody the next, when this happens we hit the Rock of Offense. Jesus himself said Matt 6:14 If you forgive you will be forgiven, wow thats hard to process. If I dont forgive I cant be forgiven? Why is it so easy to justify the holding back of grace to those that have offended us? Because we want to be the judge that makes the decision on what is forgiven or what is unforgivable. Many times I have had people tell me if you knew what they did you would understand why I cant let this go and move on. I have had husbands whose wives had cheated on them say that this unpardonable and vice versa, and I do understand the weight of this, but the fact remains that we must forgive. Many carry unforgiveness forever, for way less offenses, but at the end of the day we must still forgive. Many are praying for revival in the Church which is desperately needed, but what needs to happen is a great move of confession, repentance and forgiveness, which will bring about deep love and compassion for one another and stir our hearts to take Christ to the world, which starts right outside our door. When we are walking in the spirit we cant help but shine Christ through our life. When we are offended we send out the root of bitterness. I want to keep this short for there is a lot to take in and apply and I will send out more because this is a process and there is much more to say. But a good start is to be open with our faults and failures, confess them and move forward in love. Forgive those that have hurt us and to ask forgiveness of the ones we have hurt. Thats all I will write for now and as always please let me know your thoughts and insights on this subject we are all in this together. Darren Smith PS. Darren will be speaking on March 16th for the morning service which is at 10:30 am at Restoration Worship Center 5602 Hwy 103 Lufkin Texas. For directions, you can contact Sam here or on her cell at 936-332-0545. Also, if you would like to have Darren come and speak at your church or house meetings, please contact us.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:12:34 +0000