After sitting under the leadership of Dr. Larry Ollison for several years and reading his book, "Breaking the Cycle of Offense" (twice, and referring back to it as needed) I believed I was very well educated in offense. I had been very well trained and believed I had a a good handle on recognizing and immediately breaking the cycle of offense.
A few years ago I was spending some quality time with one of my closest girlfriends. She told me about an incident where a person had wrongfully accused her of something and had attacked her character.
I had a fit! I totally sided with my girlfriend, after all I KNOW her character! Referring to the person who had wrongfully accused my friend, I said, "Excuse her!" Then proceeded to rant about how wrong this situation was and precisely what I was going to do to correct it, etc, etc, etc. In other words, my blood was boiling!
Something powerful and forever life changing happened. My girlfriend (who was really hurt by the attack that really happened) corrected me. She laid her hurt aside, she laid her "right" to be offended aside, and sternly said, "THAT is secondary offense and if you cannot give me godly counsel and pray with and for me when I have a situation then I cannot share things like this with you because I cannot tempt you to stumble".
- HELLO!
- Jerked up short!
- Knot jerked in tail!
- Clock cleaned!
- Lunch ate!
- Wind taken out of sails!
- Slack jerked out of rope!
I picked up my chin off the floor and said, "Alright, let's start over and biblically handle this. Yeaaaa that's more like it."
Although it may be noble to defend our friends/family, we cannot take a world view on a situation. We have to operate according to Kingdom standards because it's the only way to victory.
My girlfriend and I (after I immediately decided to operate with a corrected and pure heart) discussed the prayer points of the situation, applied scripture to the situation, decreed and declared God's will in the situation, and thanked Him for working all things together for good for everyone involved, all for His glory. (James 5:16, Job 22:28, Luke 22:42, Romans 8:28, Philippians 4:6, 1 Corinthians 10:31)
Praise God for friends and family who love us enough to stand up and tell us the truth according to God's Word instead of jumping on our bandwagon, independent of their feelings!
I wasn't aware I was operating in secondary offense! I walked by feelings instead of by faith and was overcome by self deception. (2 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 3:18, 19) Oftentimes, we can let something said or done to us just "roll off our backs"; however, if someone we love is hurt we can find it quite difficult to "let it roll". Secondary offense can be sneaky, so sneaky!
Let's go one step further. Wisdom says, when we discuss a matter with someone we must insure we are seeking goldly counsel and not seeking pity and/or looking for someone to "side with us" in a matter. For example, as wives/daughters/sisters/girlfriends we cannot become entrapped by running to our husbands/parents/siblings/girlfriends with an offense. Whomever we confide in, we must make it a safe ground to be corrected by His Word and insure our confidante can handle counseling us and not become offended in the process.
LORD God, thank You for the loving people You have blessed me with. Thank You they stand up for Absolute Truth and correct and counsel me in alignment with Your Word. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for every reader right now and declare all offense to be over in all our lives! No. More. Offense. We decide to refuse offense. Secondary and otherwise! We walk in forgiveness as You forgive us! We daily do a heart check and ask You to reveal to us any areas of our hearts that may be harboring offense and unforgiveness. Create in us a new heart and renew a right spirit within us. We submit our spirit to Your Holy Spirit and invite you to immediately prompt us when offense attempts to suck us in. We declare, in the name of Jesus, we are offense free! Thank You Jesus for being our ultimate example in refusing offense. Of all people, You had every right to harbor unforgiveness but instead said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Thank You Jesus for coming so that we could have life in excessive abundance! We won't waste one day of the overcoming life You came to give us! Thank You for Your gift of eternal life and being more than a conqueror! We take ahold of it and celebrate it and we thank You for it!
James 1:17
Proverbs 15:31, 32
Proverbs 10:8
Proverbs 12:15
Matthew 6:14
Psalm 51:10
Luke 23:34
John 10:10
John 17:3
Romans 8:37
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