I don’t care if you are offended and neither does God. Being offended is a personal choice; it is a you problem. We live in a society where people are easily offended. Many times, people are offended because someone does or says something that they disagree with. Let me be clear. Just because someone does or says something that you don’t agree with, doesn’t make you right and doesn’t make the other person wrong. That is a hard pill to swallow for most of you. People have been trained and conditioned to expect others to walk on eggshells around them. One of the most foundational things missing from the character of most individuals outside of a relationship with Jesus is the ability to go through life unoffended.
It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, someone is going to offend you. The Bible is the most offensive book ever written. The obvious answer to why this is can be found in the word truth. Truth in its nature is offensive for people living outside of truth. When you speak the truth, it is often not received well with people who do not adhere to the truth. How you say things is irrelevant, it is the content of your message that drives a nail right into the opposition. I am reminded all the time when I read my Bible of how offensive Jesus was. Jesus was especially offensive to the Pharisees nearly every time he addressed them. The truth spoken to them didn’t just get under their skin, but it resonated so deep within them that they could never see the truth because their anger clouded their ability to process what Jesus was saying.
If you are offended, get over it.
When someone tells me a lie, I don’t get offended. Usually, my first response is to laugh. Lies do not bother me because I know what is true and what isn’t in my life. It often angers the other person when they do not get the reaction out of me that they think that they are going to get. I think the world would be a better place if we laughed off lies instead of quickly jumping to being offended. Being offended shows a lack of self-restraint and an ability of the other person to gas light you into getting worked up. We should follow Jesus’s example where we respond to situations with truth and without a defensive reaction. When Jesus responded, his words were often calculated. Below is an example of what I am talking about.
Matthew 12 New American Standard Bible
Sabbath Questions
12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. 2 Now when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath!” 3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions— 4 how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? 5 Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath, and yet are innocent? 6 But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 But if you had known what this means: ‘I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.
We should approach offensiveness like Jesus did. Our words should be direct truth, not wimpy lip service. People will get offended by the truth and that is fine. They can get offended all they want. The funny and predictable thing about most people is when they become offended, they get mad, but they always come back for more. Jesus had many encounters with the Pharisees throughout the New Testament. Every time he had to interact with them, he always had a very clever and truthful rebuttal. Every time they heard his words it made them madder at him. You see, when people seek lies, they will always hate what is said in truth. Just keep speaking the truth, be on the offense for God and you will never be offended and on defense from these fools.