Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. (Psalm 119:165)Â
Occasionally when I am checking out at the grocery store, the person bagging groceries asks the question, “Do you want paper or plastic?” Of course we know that this question refers to the type of bag that they will use to pack my groceries. The first several times I heard this, I thought to myself that if I say paper, someone will be offended that a tree was cut down to make the bag. On the other hand, if I say plastic, someone will be offended because oil was used to make the bag and it will end up in a land fill. On the other hand, if I buy reusable grocery bags, sooner or later someone will report that the bags were made by 7 year old children in some sweat shop somewhere. Any way you answer, someone will be offended. Being offended about something has become has become common place in our culture. Likewise, some of the things people get offended over often makes you wonder how these people make it through a day in public without having a mental meltdown because they are offended over something. The answer is simple. People who get offended do not have the peace of God that comes from having the mind of Christ. Instead, their mental focus is on how they are a helpless victim of everyone else. Jesus Himself said that people being offended would be one of the signs that the time of His return is near (Matthew 24:10). The Bible tells us that when we love God’s Word above anything else, we will have a peace of mind that makes it impossible to be offended. Therefore, if we find ourselves being offended, it should be a warning to us that we need to spend more time hiding God’s Word in our heart so that our peace and confidence is in His strength and not our own.
Read Proverbs 3:25-26; Proverbs 18:19; Matthew 13:18-21; Matthew 15:10-14; Mark 4:14-17; Mark 6:1-4; Luke 7:22-23; John 16:1-3
