A number of years (and a number of churches) ago, a really great guy named Gerald Norz approached me in the church lobby and gave me a book called "The Bait of Satan: Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense" by John Bevere

I was offended.

"You don't know me," I thought. "Don't pretend to know me. Don't pretend to know what I've been through. How dare you! Who do you think YOU are?!"

I never read the book. For years, I never read the book.

Gerald saw something in me that I never saw and, later, refused to acknowledge. The enemy had a hold on me and my faith. Satan was strangling the life out of my faith on a daily basis. And because I refused to see it, I became toxic.

Have you ever heard the maxim, “If you run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk. But if you run into jerks all day, you're the jerk”? That was me. Every day I'd be exhausted by all the jerks I had to deal with all day long. And then I'd wake up the next day pre-provoked from the day before and LOOKING for the next jerk.

Friends, that's when offence has taken hold of your life. Bitter toxicity and offence. It's an ugly outfit to wear. And a horrible combination to function out of. Because that kind of toxicity spills onto everyone around you. Especially when you try to recruit people to your offence.

"Have I told you what Bonnie did to me (said to me, thinks about me)? Can you believe it?"

Because we want others to be offended, too. Offended on our behalf. Because our offence will be justified if another person validates it. What a horrible, ugly, and toxic vibe to carry around with you. And I did that. A lot.

In fact, it was at another church some years later where I was called out by the pastor for my bologna sausage and toxic infection.

The Bible is quite clear about how to handle offense:

Proverbs 19:11 “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.”

Matthew 6:15 “but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Ephesians 4:31 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.”

And as it applies to recruiting people to our offence:

Proverbs 17:9 “He who conceals a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter (speaks it to the public) separates intimate friends.”

If you're ALWAYS offended; if you're ALWAYS surrounded by jerks, you're keeping pet monsters under your bed. You've GOT to let them go, friends. Your faith can't breathe if you keep them. And it doesn't happen overnight, either. I'm STILL battling this "bait of Satan," just not to the degree I used to (praise Jesus).

Pray about it. Read scripture about it. And see if Gerald Norz still has a copy of that book. You'll want to read it!

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Praying for God's grace and peace in your life,

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