Creflo A. Dollar : The Spiritual Progression of Offense – Sunday Service
When Offense Becomes a Prison: The Silent Progression of a Wounded Heart
When Jesus spoke about giving, He wasn’t teaching us to bargain with God—He was inviting us into the flow of His generosity. Generosity is part of God’s DNA, and when we give, we simply step into what He already finished. We aren’t trading with Him; we are responding to His goodness. Giving awakens us to the abundance already available in Christ. It is not a transaction—it is participation in the heart of a generous Father.
But while generosity opens us, offense shuts us down.
This entire message began with a simple moment when I realized something painful: I had wounds in my soul that I didn’t even remember were there. Hidden hurts. Old disappointments. Places where offense had been taken, buried, and forgotten—yet still shaping my reactions, my emotions, and even my spiritual progress.
Jesus warned that offenses would come. But He never said we had to receive them.
Most of us don’t realize how easily offense enters. One word. One action. One expectation unmet. And suddenly, what began as a simple offense becomes something far deeper.
1. Offense → Hurt / Disappointment
Offense always begins as a wound—an expectation that didn’t happen, a friend who didn’t show up, a pastor who forgot to acknowledge your service, a word spoken without awareness of your sensitive places.
Scripture says, “A brother offended is harder to win than a strong city.”
Hurt builds walls—thick, protective, emotional walls. Many of us have turned our souls into storage closets for all the hurt we never processed. We tell ourselves, “It didn’t hurt,” but the truth is that it did, and it still does.
Some people are outwardly strong but inwardly bleeding. Some have learned to smile over wounds that never healed. And some have packed so many hurts into that inner closet that one day, everything spills out without warning.
This is how the spiritual progression begins.
2. Hurt → Bitterness
Unprocessed hurt never stays hurt. In time, it becomes bitterness.
Bitterness is hurt marinated in time.
It’s the replaying of the offense over and over.
It’s feeling the pain even when the person is not present.
It’s telling the story again and again to anyone who will listen.
Scripture calls bitterness a root—because it grows in secret.
“See that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble…”
Bitterness spreads:
into your attitude
into your conversations
into your relationships
And worst of all—it begins to contaminate the grace you’re supposed to walk in. Grace can’t flow freely through a bitter soul. Bitterness blocks clarity, joy, peace, and spiritual growth. It quietly derails destinies.
Many believers think they’ve moved on, but the truth is that the hurt has simply been placed in storage.
And the enemy doesn’t have to create the offense—he only needs to inflame the one you already took.
You Do Not Have to Live Wounded
Offense may come, but you don’t have to receive it.
Hurt may happen, but it does not have to stay.
Bitterness may try to take root, but you can uproot it before it grows.
God is not exposing your pain to shame you—He is exposing it to heal you.
Some of you reading this have been living with a hole in your heart. You’ve carried the weight of old hurts quietly, hoping no one notices. But God notices. And He is ready to heal—not just the wound, but the pattern of wounds that have shaped your life.
Your identity is not in the offense you took.
Your identity is in Christ.
And Christ has already finished your healing