Hopefully the title hooked you a little to read this?
Because while there is plenty of modern teaching on offence and how to potentially avoid it, deal with it, I just haven't seen much on how dangerous it can be to you spiritually.
There is an amazing and sobering warning given in scripture that I hope as I share with you today, causes you to avoid becoming offended. And if you are offended, you will be motivated to get rid of it as fast as possible...
King David was a passionate man for the Kingdom.
In fact he is so into it that God even refers to him "as a man after my own heart"!
That is a pretty flattering and lofty endorsement from heaven!
During his reign as King he finds the Ark of the Covenant and desires to bring it Jerusalem.
To give it a home in the spiritual and practical centre of his nation Israel.
As they are bringing it into Jerusalem it is recorded he is so excited and passionate that he removes his kingly robes to be like "any normal fellow" and dances before the Ark with everything he has got.
He doesn't care what anyone thinks.
All that matters is that he honours God as best he can.
As God looked on and honoured his zeal, it is recorded that someone else was also looking on...
16As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.
20When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”
21David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. 22I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”
23And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.
2 Samuel 6:16, 20-23 NIV
The crazy thing for me is she got offended by his passion for God!
I believe her offence stemmed from her own issues, her own insecurities, the visual conviction that maybe she wasn't on the same spiritual page as her husband?
So she gets offended.
That offence brought a curse.
And she missed out on what God wanted to do in and through her life.
Her story is a sobering warning for us who believe in Christ to not let offence in, to take hold, because if left unchecked, it can curse us spiritually.
It could rob us of the full measure of the Kingdom.
If you are offended today please ask the Holy Spirit to help you and heal you. Ask God to forgive you (which He will!).
And please let it go and move on.
Something to think about...
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