Becoming Un-offendable
Becoming Unoffendable
Philippians 2:4
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.
We all struggle with the reality of valuing others as more important than ourselves, and one way that it shows up is the ease with which we are offended.
This has become a Life Theme for me—to be un-offendable. (listen to a message on this subject here)
The taking of offense—or feeling offended—often involves an experience of negative emotions caused by a word or an action which is in conflict with what we might expect and believe to be the right, appropriate, moral, acceptable (and biblical) behavior. 1
The more time I spend walking with Jesus, in prayer, in the Word, with other believers, and just being with Him, the more convicted I am about the ease with which I judge others.
In the parable of The Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of a servant (me) being forgiven a massive debt by his master (Jesus), and then going out and demanding repayment of a tiny debt from a fellow servant (that is me being offended by a fellow believer).
This parable teaches that there is nothing that anyone can do or say to me that is worse than my sin before the Savior. If my sin toward Jesus is always worse than their sin to me, then I really cannot be offended, or judge harshly, or ascribe wrong motives to the actions of others.
If I truly believe that I have been rescued from a place far, far from God; if I truly believe that my sin was as scarlet and that the blood of Jesus has washed me white as snow, and if I truly believe that all sin is equal, that yours is not worse than mine, then I would be like the one for whom MUCH has been forgiven. I would forever see my life as belonging to the one who rescued me and I would be unable to find offense in the words and deeds of others.
Offense taken and not dealt with brings a great danger of a slide into to a heart of bitterness. A bitter heart can destroy relationships and ministry, along with the faith and walk of the one holding the offence.
See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Hebrews 12:15
In humility, though, I must be cautious not to offend you and then demand that you not be offended! Loving our brothers and sisters as Christ loved us is a sacrificial lifestyle. There will always be weaker brothers, who are easily offended, but they are still part of the body and still in need of being cared for “as being more important than ourselves”.
I am always surprised by the extra grace that we show someone when we find out that they are in the middle of a very difficult season, or that they have suffered a loss. Why are we not able to show that Grace from the start?
Americans especially have a sense of entitlement to being treated well by store clerks and others in the service industry. We are incensed when we are treated with rudeness or indifference. But when dealing with un-believing, non Christ following people, why do we expect or insist on Holy Spirit behavior? We are offended even by un-believers!
What an opportunity to show the Mind of Christ both to the believers around us and to the un-saved world around us.
I shared these thoughts in a church recently and had one older man come up to me after to say that he was offended by what I had shared and taught. At first, I thought that he was joking with me, but as he got more and more intense, I realized that he was serious. I sighed heavily in my heart and thought of how much he was missing in the blessings of following Christ.
I know that I personally talk about this concept of Unoffendability, but I find myself struggling just as anyone else. Maybe that is why it has become so important to me. I find the final verse in this passage to be the one that strikes fear in my own heart. Jesus says, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart".
When Jesus says that we are to love one another, to wash each other’s feet, to count others as more important than ourselves, to serve each other as he served us, there seems to be very little room for self. Jesus bids us come and die. To self. I believe that a huge step in that direction is to learn the lessons of The Unmerciful Servant.
We can do so much good and effective work for the Kingdom of God with humble, grateful, and un-offendable hearts, so let us extend grace upon grace to the brothers and sisters and the un-believers around us this week.
1 FastCompany magazine March 5, 2020, “The Psychology of taking offense”. I added “biblical”