Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters)

by Brant Hansen

Refusing to be offended by others is a powerful door-opener to actual relationships.

“Christians do not condone unbiblical living; we redeem it.”2

Love people where they are, and love them boldly. And if you really want to go crazy, like them too.

My goal with relationships is no longer to try to change people. It’s to introduce people to a God who is already reaching toward them, right where they are.

Welcoming people into our lives isn’t “glossing over important issues.” Refusing to be angry about others’ views isn’t conflict avoidance or happy-talk. It’s the very nature of serving people. I don’t pretend the differences aren’t there; I just appreciate that God has a different timetable with everyone.

Don’t condemn the culture; redeem it.

We’re supposed to surrender the idea that we know others’ motivations? We’re supposed to give up thinking we know everyone’s spiritual temperature? We’re supposed to live without constantly assessing where we, ourselves, stand spiritually?

I don’t know where people really stand with God.

Jesus had to point out to seemingly upstanding religious leaders that some prostitutes were closer to the kingdom of God than they were. Would you or I have known that?

You can quit trying to assess everyone; quit pretending you know where people stand; quit fooling yourself into thinking you know what others are thinking, what’s in their hearts.

everyone, pastors and prostitutes, needs more Jesus.

God knows how we’re wired. He tells us to forgive and to get rid of anger. People made in His image would do well to listen. It means everything, not just for us, but for those around us.

But He made us, and He knows how we operate best. He says to hand it over.

He’s promising a release from the constant evaluation, never-ending striving, and relentless assessment of where we, and everyone else, stand.

Anger and action are two very different things, and confusing the two actually hurts our efforts to set things right.