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by
Brant Hansen
Read between
July 21 - July 31, 2020
You can choose to be “unoffendable.”
Forfeiting our right to anger makes us deny ourselves, and makes us others-centered. When we start living this way, it changes everything.
We’re told to forgive, and that means anger has to go, whether we’ve decided our own anger is “righteous” or not.
Ephesians 4:26 NCV When you are angry, do not sin, and be sure to stop being angry before the end of the day.
Ephesians 4:26 MSG Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge . . .
Yes, we will get angry; that happens; we’re human. But then we have to get rid of it.
“You may believe you are doing right, but the LORD will judge your reasons” (Prov. 16:2 NCV).
The thing that you think makes your anger “righteous” is the very thing you are called to forgive.
Grace isn’t for the deserving. Forgiving means surrendering your claim to resentment and letting go of anger.
Love is very difficult. Love is a miracle.
“Love your enemies,”
“Pray for those who persecute you,”
“The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20 ESV).
Colossians 3:8: “But now also put these things out of your life: anger, bad temper, doing or saying things to hurt others, and using evil words when you talk” (NCV).
(Ps. 103:12).
the lap of fools” (Eccl. 7:9).
Being offended is a tiring business. Letting things go gives you energy.
As for myself, I do not care if I am judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I know of no wrong I have done, but this does not make me right before the Lord. The Lord is the One who judges me. So do not judge before the right time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light things that are now hidden in darkness, and will make known the secret purposes of people’s hearts. Then God will praise each one of them. (1 Cor. 4:3–5 NCV)
God knows others’ private motives. We don’t. God knows our private motives. We don’t. We think we can judge others’ motives. We’re wrong.
Instead of changing our beliefs to match reality, we often just rearrange reality, in our heads, to match what we want.
Proverbs 18:17: “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him” (NKJV).
If I don’t need to be right, I don’t have to reshape reality to fit “The Story of My Rightness.”
Oh yes, the heart is deceptive. And that calls for humility above all else, because my heart isn’t deceptive because it fools other people. It’s deceptive because it fools me.
C.S. Lewis wrote: One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or
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So what if—just dreaming out loud, here—Christians were known as the people you couldn’t offend?
“who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Rom. 4:17 NKJV).
God sees things we don’t. He must, because He hasn’t vaporized us yet.
He apparently sees us the same way. He’s not just an artist, of course, like Chris. He’s also a Father. Good dads are like that. You may be a drop-out, underachiever, whatever, and a good dad will still love you, but he’ll push you to change, because he sees a different you ahead. He sees a finished product, an adult who uses his or her talents and is a blessing to others. He sees something wonderful.
Jesus is this way with the most morally embarrassing people. You can’t find a single story in the Bible where He’s so disgusted, so scandalized by someone’s moral behavior, that He writes him off. It just doesn’t happen.
“Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times” (John 13:38 NKJV).
John 14,
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (vv. 1–3 NKJV)
That person you find so offensive? Somehow, God sees something there. Something you don’t. Ask Him what it is. Maybe He’ll show you. I bet He wants to.
John 2
“Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature. No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like” (vv. 24–25 NLT).
Perhaps a big part of being less offendable is seeing the human heart for what it is: Untrustworthy. Unfaithful. Prone to selfishness. Got it. Now we don’t have to be shocked.
Jesus encountered one moral mess after another, and He was never taken aback by anyone’s morality. Ever.
So how about taking this idea to all of our experience: You really can’t believe politicians would lie? You can’t believe a preacher would cheat on his wife? You can’t believe someone would try to steal from you? You can’t believe a neighbor would set off fireworks at 2:00 a.m.? You can’t believe a world leader would tyrannize his own people? Are we going to live in perpetual shock at the nature of man?
“No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like” (John 2:25 NLT).
Yes, the world is broken. But don’t be offended by it. Instead, thank God that He’s intervened in it, and He’s going to restore it.
War is not exceptional; peace is. Worry is not exceptional; trust is. Decay is not exceptional; restoration is. Anger is not exceptional; gratitude is. Selfishness is not exceptional; sacrifice is. Defensiveness is not exceptional; love is. And judgmentalism is not exceptional . . . But grace is.
Recognize our current state, and then replace the shock and anger with gratitude.
Grace has no borders. Love breaks through, and—just as Jesus said of the church—the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
When we recognize our unsurprising fallenness and keep our eyes joyfully open for the glorious exceptions, we’re much less offendable. Why? Because that’s the thing about gratitude and anger: they can’t coexist. It’s one or the other. One drains the very life from you. The other fills your life with wonder. Choose wisely.
Is Bob371 a mortal threat to the kingdom? No, Bob371 is not a mortal threat to the kingdom. God is patient with Bob371.
(Matt. 11:28).
Living the usual way, we’re prone to offense simply because people can’t help but stand in the way of what we’re straining to get.
It’s tiring to have to work through difficulties with people. But for what it’s worth, I’ve learned it’s way easier than starting over.
wants to know us, and He wants us to know Him. He wants us to want Him. Not ideas or abstractions about Him, but Him. Ultimately, this is a more restful life. Not just because it might mean some quiet, meditative moments—though they’re wonderful—but because when we surrender control, there’s so much less at stake in life for us.
Psalm 46:10,
