You Are Offensive to Me

                          You Are Offensive to Me

 

                 Hello and welcome to My Little House of Prayer. I am your Host Dayla Smith. I am so very glad that you could join me today. Let’s open in prayer. Right now we live in a society of being politically correct. How we behave. What we say. Even our moral principles and beliefs are being scrutinized by our society. Social Medias are inspecting each and every word. Bills are being passed to box in the amendments. What happened to freedom of speech? What happened to being able to openly answer questions concerning our faith? Why are we walking around so sensitive? You know,walking around with your heart on your sleeve. Why do we walk around waiting to be offended at anything and everything? Apparently we have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. We need to go to the Lord and get up on His side of the bed. Why do we wake up already expecting to be offended? 

                   Let’s look at Matthew 24:10-12   10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Do you see How the enemy wants to set traps and will catch many. This is why He says to stay alert and remain always in prayer and reading our bible. 

                    Now, let’s look at 1 Corinthians chapter 13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

(13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.)

                     We are looking at verses 1-3. Our mouths get us in so much trouble. Our mouths are our own worst enemy. Life and death are in the power of the tongue. Not just to ourselves, but we can speak life or death over anyone or anything. I have plants. I love plants. I know. Here we go again. Another story about playing a radio with positive or negative music. Positive, they grow and live. Negative, they die. Nope. This is putting my words in action. In my walk early on, I moved into a house. Who ever lived there before, laid carpet on the ground so that grass would not grow. They let the leaves of the oak tree fall. When I moved in, I went to rake the leaves. I walked into leaves that were up to my knees. I’m not exaggerating. I wanted grass to grow. So, I piled up leaves and put them into trash bags. I threw that away and then, as I uncovered the ground, I saw the carpet. I pulled up the carpet and threw that away, and boy was that a feat! The lengths and widths were astronomical! Some, I had to cut up into smaller pieces. What I uncovered was pure dirt everywhere. Not one blade of grass to be found. What did I do? I went to my father in heaven and asked him for grass. He told me to march 7 times around the property confessing that grass would grow in that ground. The same life giving power the Lord had, he gave to me. The next thing I knew, I had a beautiful lush green carpet of grass all over my yard. The reason for this testimony is that the Lord has given us power to speak life or death over anything and anyone. 

                       We can choose to walk out our lives miserable and angry. Remember, it says in Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. In another scripture Jesus tells us that it is not necessarily what we eat or drink that defiles us, but what we allow to come out of our wonderful, big pie holes. Hahahah What can control our thought life, and in so doing, we control what comes out of our mouths. The Hebrew word for heart here is mind. So read it replacing heart with mind. I think this makes this scripture very telling and powerful. So, if our thoughts are on being offended we have a greater chance of speaking offense. This in turn creates a vicious cycle that only with the Lord’s help we can conquer being offended. You can’t truly walk in love if you are walking around offended. So, we are back to the topic of “You are Offensive to Me”. 

                           So, the rest of the chapter deals with how we act toward others. I find it interesting that the Lord first deals with how we act. Then, He deals with how we in turn would treat others. You see, God is love. He first loved us. We have to get alone with Him all day, every day. We can’t begin to go out and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth properly without Him. Without allowing Him to deal with us in our alone time. We cannot tap into the fruits of the Spirit without getting alone and real with Him. If we are to properly start our day. We have to pray first! I can’t stress this enough. Seek Him out. Why? To glorify His wonderful Name. Then, to allow Him to reveal to us the sins in our lives. The sins we need to repent of. Remember to thank Him for His many blessings that He is and will provide for us that day. Then, Thank Him also for His greatest blessing and miracle. The miracle of forgiveness. Because after we have received that wonderful gift, we are to go out and share that gift all day long. No less than 490 times per day. So let’s look at the many offenses that occur in our lives and around the world.

                        Love suffers long and is kind. (Enduring) What? We have to suffer and be kind while we are suffering? Paul says in Philippians 3:10-11  10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. What does the word fellowship here mean? In the Greek in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance it means a partnership, participation, communicate, communication, communion, distribution, or contribution. It is like this, almost 20 yrs. Ago, at the beginning of my first marriage, I was struggling with being patient and long suffering with my husband. You see when things get difficult, in this day and time the world says walk away from it. Walk away from them. But what they don’t tell you is that when you do that, you open the door and welcome in the enemies of unforgiveness and bitterness. It becomes twice as hard to “work things out.” Most people never do. 

              Anyway, it was one of the many times I was begging the Lord to let me walk away. I thank the Lord that He never allowed me to walk away. There is so much to be thankful about. I truly loved my husband all the way to His dying breath. The Lord helped me to never give up on us. Me, Him, and in so doing, Jesus. 

                      He gave me a dream. In the dream, I was interested in purchasing this beautiful wedding ring set. Mine had 2 baguettes and a 3 carat diamond on it. His had 5 stars engraved in His. They were made of pure gold. I wasn’t pleased with the price of the ring. So the jeweler said He would go down to a certain price. I agreed and bought the ring. I woke up. I pondered on the dream for most of the morning. It was when I was doing my dishes that I saw rainbows on the wall of my kitchen. The sun had shone on a stone in a ring I was wearing. It was  casting rainbows everywhere. That’s when the Lord spoke to me and said, “Are your relationships worth fighting for? Is your relationship with your husband worth fighting for? What value do you put on your marriage?” And then, He gave me the interpretation of the dream. The 2 baguettes were my husband and I. The rainbows represented the many ways the Lord wanted to use us together. The 3 carat diamond was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With Him, together, we could accomplish many things for Him. Separate, He could not nearly accomplish what He wanted to do using both of us.

                       Well that day I made it my mission to stay in. To be the one the Lord would use to show His love towards. It’s a funny thing. When my husband passed, I was talking to the Lord. I told Him I did my best to love Him, did He know that my heart had gotten totally involved, too?The most encouraging thing that the Lord told me was this, “Dayla, I needed you to love Him totally. I needed you to truly love Him when no one else could. Your love in turn taught Him to fight for His relationship with me. He fought and then, the battle became overwhelming for him. You did what I asked you to do. Show forth My Love toward Him.” Can I tell you just how encouraging this statement was to me? It has immensely helped with the grief. He truly is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. The Lord just revealed to me that this is a series. We have 7 more ways of offense. I hope that this will be a blessing to all of us. Me included. 

                  It was the Lord’s hand that kept me together. It was the Lord’s will that made me stay. It was His enduring, a.k.a. Long suffering love that I allowed Him to love us both. I have had mountaintops and valleys in this walk with my husband. But, I would not have been able to gain the appreciation of them without the Lord holding us together. Did you know this goes for all different kinds of relationships in our lives. The Lord wants the glory out of all of them. Yes, it comes back to Him. If it weren’t for Him, we would not have been allowed those relationships. You see, He wants our relationship with Him to shine through to others. His great forgiveness and mercy he imparts to us to shine through to others throughout our day.

                  The Lord allowed me to share this with a couple of friends of mine that were bickering with one another. It was such an honor to be able to share the Love of Jesus Christ with them. The

long-suffering, enduring kind of love that the Lord wanted to develop in them. It was amazing to  be allowed the gift of being a peacemaker in a situation with the opportunity of being long-suffering towards one another. They were looking at each other's faults through the eyes of criticism. How often do we do this to one another? Whenever you see someone’s faults it is not a call to criticize and point it out. It is the Lord calling us to intercede for that person. Remember that it says in Matthew 7:1-5   7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

                              I find it interesting that Jesus calls us a hypocrite when we judge others before first getting rid of that sin in our own hearts. Here it is again. A call for a soul search. When we treat others in this manner, you will find yourself allowing the Lord to help you to mature in walk with Him. This in turn then, allows Him to work many miracles in your life and in the lives of others. 

                   I was allowed to patiently listen to both of them. Then, while they were talking, the Lord spoke to my heart the information they needed to start walking His way. It just was so powerful to see the joy back in their relationship again. You see, they were both reacting to each other instead of acting to each other. React in the Webster Dictionary means: An action to a person or stimulus; to have a mutual or reverse effect; or to revolt. Act in verb form means: To perform or behave in a certain manner; to perform a specific function; to have an effect; to misbehave; to malfunction; or to portray by actions. In the noun form it means: something done, a deed; an exploit; or a law. A dear friend of mine once said to me, you can choose to walk in the Lord’s love, light, and life, or you can choose to walk in Satan’s death, hate, and darkness. But, treating death, hate, and darkness with death, hate, and darkness, only begets more death, hate, and darkness. When we look at life this way, we see opportunities to look past the situation and treat it with prayer and listening for His heart beat. Asking Him how to correctly administer His love, light, and life in the situation. 

                  Treat others as you would have them do unto you. I hope and pray that there are those who see my many faults and failures, that they would pray for me instead of judging and gossiping about me. That they would forgive me if my actions hurt them in some way. That they would come to me, so that we could discuss it. That they would pray for me, expecting the Lord to change them first. That’s right. When we are allowed to see someone’s faults and failures, He will change us first before He begins to change the other person. This is the same long-suffering patience the Lord shows each and every one of us. But, His is with His righteous perfection. Freely we have received, freely we are called to give. 

                             We cannot truly treat others with His love until we receive His awesome gift of enduring love for ourselves. We have to get into the Father’s presence, who is love, and let Him love us. When we let Him love us, we can properly love others. So, if you want to experience the father’s enduring love today, if you want to experience His presence this way, you must accept His wonderful gift of salvation through the righteous sacrifice of Him and His son.  If you do not know the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Let me introduce you to Him. It is really simple. First you must acknowledge that you are a sinner in need of a savior according to the mirror of the law of the Lord. Ask Him for His forgiveness for all of your sins and call them out to Him. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Then, forgive those who have sinned or transgressed against you. Then, repent. Repent means to change your mind concerning sinful habits. Change your choice making decisions. Let Him influence your choice making decisions as you get in His Holy Word. Ask Him to be Lord over your life. I want to pray this prayer with you. But, this is just an outline. The real work begins after I pray with you because it is a very personal walk with the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. 

                    Lord Jesus, I confess my sins and ask for your forgiveness. Please come into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Take complete control of my life and help me to walk in Your footsteps daily by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord for saving me and for answering my prayer. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

                               If you have made the decision to give your life to Jesus, let me be one of the first to welcome you to the body of Christ. All of heaven is greatly rejoicing over your decision today. Please let me know of your decision today. I want to pray for you. If this message has brought up any questions or spoke to you in some way, or if you have any prayer requests; please let me know by commenting below, private messaging me, or you can email me at my1littleafmp@aol.com. I would greatly love to hear from you. Remember I love you with the Love of the Lord but Jesus will always love you more.

(close in prayer)