![]() ![]() ![]() Help me to be quick to forgive, and give me a humble heart, not prideful or impatient. Lord, make me wise and self-controlled so that I don’t give in to the deception of offense. “Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me” ( Psalm 51:10 ). If you want to maintain good relationships, in your marriage, with your friends, or with other loved ones, don’t give into offense. This means you choose to forgive and you do not allow your heart to become hardened. It means you know which battles to fight, but also protect your relationships and your heart from offense. To decide not to hold onto offense does not mean you don’t stand up for what’s right. Our hearts affect how we interpret the world around us and how we perceive others too. This is why it’s so important to care for the condition of our hearts and not hold onto grudges, offenses, and wrongs. And when it blinds, it destroys relationships. Not only is she disrespectful, but she isn’t a good housekeeper, she spends too much time with her friends, she has an irritating voice and he hates the way she laughs. Now all he can see are her flaws, he can’t see her good traits. But rather than seek to resolve the conflict by asking his wife to respect him in public, and explain how her comments made him feel, he becomes hurt, then angry, then offended.Īnd once he feels offended, he is blinded. Perhaps a wife disrespects her husband by making a negative comment about him in front of his friends. It will also blind you to your own sin, which may be the sin of pride. Offense will also cause you to accentuate your good traits-and focus on how you deserve justice. And, if you are offended enough, it will cause you to vilify them in every way. You may make a mental list of all the ways they are irritating, the ways they bother you, and other ways they have wronged you. If you choose offense, it will make you blind to the other person’s positive qualities and causes you to focus on their negative traits. Offense is dangerous because it makes the person who is offended blind. Offense is holding onto a grudge, nursing bitterness, and allowing the wrong to change your heart condition and contaminate your emotions and thinking. When this happens, it’s natural to be hurt, and it’s normal to feel injustice has occurred. ![]() We all experience messy relationships now and then when we are wronged by someone. Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – May 21, 2019 ![]()
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