Offense and Offensiveness is a Sickness Revisited
I have been going through a lot of my previous material written through the last few years.This includes articles that are on the churches website (ghcc.online). We are in the first stages of creating a separate page for my ministry to work in conjunction with the GHCC website. I saw this article and in light of some current events in our nation, and the obvious parallels within the Body of Christ, I thought this subject would be good to revisit. It's almost a new article in itself; the original only being a skeleton I was able to build upon.
These considerations are relevant concerning both our country and the Body of Christ. We have not been exempt from the tactics of "The Accuser of the Brethren", as he wields his most trusted weapon...division through agitation and victimology...upon a sightless world AND a Church that has not expelled from themselves the remnants of a world we have been delivered out of.
The Trap
Everyone needs a break. Even the Lord said in so many words:
"Hey! You're gonna take a day off, like it or not. It's so important that you get some rest, that I'm putting it (the Sabbath) as one of the Big Ten!"
We were never created to be on the go, twenty four, seven. It is important to consider that rest is just as important to our minds as well as our bodies. You cannot do 500 push ups in a row. Your muscles will get so tired they just stop working. Our minds are the same. Continuous input, especially intense, stressful input, will leave us as zombies faster than you can say "apocalypse".
We have experts in unlimited fields. When expertise is used for the benefit of mankind, great accomplishments happen. Well, the opposite is true as well. Consider an expert in a field, if having evil intentions, can use their knowledge to harm as well as to do good.
So why am I saying this and what does this have to do with push ups and brain fry?
Because it is important to understand that there are experts in the fields of human development and society and philosophy...and the subject of this article...the science of social unrest and agitation...that are using these very skills to numb the minds of our nation. This includes a constant assault upon our minds and senses by cultural prophets and politicians through multiple information channels, who with total abandon hurl insults and accusations against our nation and one another. This in turn is meant not to simply divide us. But to verbally and physically cause us to bring great harm to one another; believing the fellow citizen we are looking at is not a fellow compatriot we disagree with, but a sworn enemy to destroy.
The purpose is to dismantle that which has not just made America great, but guided her in those periods she wasn't so great. That's right. Think about it. One of the institutions under continuous attack is the Judeo Christian ethic. It is in line with all the other grievances cited by these people claiming America is evil and to be hated; religion being the cause of many of these crimes. They do not consider that at our darkest times...including times of terrible human rights violations...
...it was the Judeo Christian ethic that overwhelmingly snapped us out of such evils and caused us to fight for rightness and equity.These folks want to obliterate the very things that straitened out that which they complain the most about!
Having said these things, this is not an article simply about leftist agitators and whether CNN would make a good toilet paper logo. These very things have not just leaked into the Church...they have flooded the Church!
Whether the offense is one brother against another, or the condemnation of one denomination or movement against the other simply because someone doesn't like someone else, the Body of Christ in too many places is out of joint. If you read some folks out there, self appointed judges of all that is Jesus, it's not as if they don't see eye to eye doctrinally; you are a false prophet and wolf in sheep's clothing if just one thing is not in line with their theology.
note:
If we followed that reasoning, Peter would be labeled a false prophet by those self appointed judges because he may have had momentary bouts of hypocrisy or legalism!
The same venom...and evil spirit behind it...that causes the media to jump in and lie about high school kids and a Native American...fuels the same angst against their own brothers in the Church. Riled up mobs of religionists, though using the name of Jesus, are as bad...no...make it worse since they place Jesus' name on their actions...as those they would pray against and are equally puppets in the hands of those who divide for the purpose of conquering.
It's sickening.
Ready...Set...
Just when you would think we would get a reprieve...maybe some kind of half time or the seventh inning stretch...when it comes to class warfare and victimology, spitting upon and cursing our wonderful nation that has brought great benevolence to the world...there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. No breaks...no recess...just the incessant sound of the jackhammer pounding away at the soul of our exceptional though admittedly flawed nation and its people. Like the latch on the gas pump hose that you lock and then take your hands off. It just keeps pumping and pumping and pumping.
I'm reminded of the movie Christmas Vacation. Remember when Clark's brother Eddie was emptying out the sewage from his RV into the drain? You could almost smell the sludge you saw coming out of that hose.
It seems much of the media and hate driven, historical and principally misguided individuals today are more than happy to be Eddie and spew an endless supply of the worst in human beings on the sites and screens and tabloids...saturating our souls in its filth.
And the hits just keep on coming.
There are forces wanting to divide this country...and the Body of Christ...into more splinters than the hay in the hay stack you can't find the needles in! They use uncontrolled human emotion and ignorance to fuel rage and a misguided self-righteousness that believes the "greater good" is worth it and validates the means. The collateral damage being immaterial.
My friends, offense and offensiveness...hatred...strife and chaos...social upheaval...these are things that should result in at minimum, scolding, and more appropriately, jail time!
They are not supposed to be political platforms!
We are seeing untold instances of ethnicity and social status and employment status and sex status...really any "status" is found to be fair game...pitted against one another in the name of "white privilege"...misogyny..."Wall-Streeters"...haters...bigots...phobic...
And in the Church..."charismania"..."prosperity and name it claim it gospel"..."frozen chosen"...
It is a rallying theme for people that cry out: "Those evil (fill in the blank) people don't understand you and they better pay!!!" And the more up the ladder you find yourself in the victimology chain, the more grievances and remuneration you are entitled to.
Let's get something in our heads and that pretty quick. Whether in our own personal world view...or worse...those who would manipulate and take advantage of these things for their own personal gain...
Offense and being offended...makes you a pawn and puppet!!! Better get rid of it. Or those invisible strings attached to your lack of self control or social and religious discernment will continually demand you respond in kind to that invisible master you have decided to submit to!
Our nation repeatedly has been saved by a reminder and even revolution of Judeo Christian ethic and morality. Godly principles more than once snapped us to attention with both awareness and instruction on how to stop being such idiots. Let's see what instructions He would give both the Church, and the nation that clearly was founded under the guidance of our Lord.
And I quote...
"...bearing with one another and if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." Colossians 3:13
"Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t His sisters here with us as well?” And they took offense at Him. Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is without honor only in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household.” So He could not perform any miracles there, except to lay His hands on a few of the sick and heal them" Mark 6:3-5
Being offended is the number one subject (outside of the Lord Himself of course) I have...do...and continually will hammer on because it is the number one weapon Satan uses against us to divide and devour even our own brothers and sisters and leaders. It is the surest foolproof way of short-circuiting the power of God in our lives...or a peaceful coexistence within our country...just as it did in Jesus' hometown. Unbelief spawned from offense kept many in bondage to the devil even while Jesus was there to free them.
Did you notice in the above verse the command...we MUST forgive...? The Lord wants us to be liberated from this terrible cancer of the soul and the only medicine for it is forgiveness.!
As I mentioned above, offense allows us to be slaves and puppets and pawns to both the devil and those who have learned the art of human manipulation. We allow our personal hurt to become a license we believe authorizes us to hurt others and/or get things to stroke your own pride or passions. The entire time believing you are accepted by God in your behavior.
See that guy getting sick at the beginning of this article? I chose that image on purpose. That is how we should see being offended, within ourselves. This article and another one I wrote on "Unforgiveness Woes" should be read hand in hand.
My comments:
"Simply put...you have believed a lie. That lie is the idea that somehow someone has some special insight into "pain".
If I slam my hand with a hammer....or catch it in the car door..my hand doesn't differentiate the cause...it just feels pain. To believe that you...or anyone...can have some kind of hurt so unique that you accuse me or any one else of not being able to understand is the same as the white person who has cancer saying to the black person..."You may have cancer...But I REALLY have cancer and you just cant understand "my personal white cancer"...It is the Korean who had a heart attack saying to the African..."you had a heart attack...but I REALLY had a heart attack!" Can you imagine the Korean national actually indicting the black man because he can't possibly understand what it is to have a "Korean heart attack"?
Its stupid....and its a lie.
Pain...physical or emotional...is the result of a stimulus that caused it. Emotional pain...heart attack pain...stub the toe pain...these things do not differentiate between white or black or male or female or rich or poor. They are common to all humanity! In todays world of victimology, one would claim that other ethnics or social statuses cant understand the pain of these things the same way and therefore we should differentiate...alienate...and cause to remunerate.
Listen...Bill Gates is going to yell just as loud when he stubs his toe as the homeless person on the street!
This does not mean that different "hurts" may not require specific treatment. My "headache" pain will be relieved differently that my "heart attack" pain. Different ailments will require differing treatments and even recovery time. BUT these do not do away with the commonality to all people that ...we can be hurt...and the goal should be the healing of it...not the coddling of it as if you or anyone else is someone special and should be treated as such.
I have been in the hospital multiple times.
My goal going in was to get out as quickly as possible!
I didn't look at the bed and all those people taking care of me and all the service and all the attention as something to live within...but to endure SO I CAN BE HEALTHY AND GET THE HECK OUT OF THERE!
Offended people are sick people...and instead of living within their hurts as normal...healing must take place and that will start with recognizing "...this isn't right...no one owes me anything because of it...and let's get to work on being free!"
The idea that since someone evil mistreated you...makes you special or have some monopoly on pain that someone else doesn't understand...how is that?
It is this idea that everyone has some "pain and hurt" that others cannot understand and then held on to...is a reason that those who would divide our nation have found a feast and unlimited supply of fodder to continually divide us into our own little camps through victimology.
The fact is you are not special in your pain...you really don't have a right to special treatment or consideration from anyone except to serve you in getting well...and I would suggest that instead of coddling and feeding these things...you see it for what it is. A devil...a lie...a disease so virulent that it will continue to rejoice as it cripples you for the rest of your life...
...and then get treatment...not a celebration party!
And as long as you feel you or anyone else can caress your special pain and in your own perception makes you "non-understandable" you will have accepted and continue to drink in a poison in your soul that I will only be able to muster one reaction...to feel very sorry for you."
