Don’t Take Offense | Joyce Meyer | Enjoying Everyday Life Teaching

Offense is a trap that keeps us from enjoying our own lives. On this episode of Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer, learn how to resist offense quickly and thoroughly with help from God’s Word!

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives. With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

Free too. Tonight, we’re gonna talk about not taking offense.
I can’t guarantee you that somebody won’t try to give you some, but it’s up to us, whether we want to take it or not.
I’m Joyce Meyer, and I believe that god can heal you everywhere you heard.
Let me ask a question.
Do any of you ever get offended?
Right over there, two people.
How many of you get your feelings hurt kinda easy?
I knew it’d be all the women, you know.
There’s an occasional man that may be like that, but Usually, it’s ladies because we got lots of emotions and, uh but, you know, You’re always gonna have opportunities to be offended.
I mean, one lady after hearing me teach said she counted how many opportunities she had to be offended in a week and had 40 things on our list.
You may have an opportunity to be offended before you get out of this building tonight.
I mean, that’s just the truth.
I mean, you know, some wonderful Christian who’s been in here and heard us talk about love may almost run you over in the parking lot.
And you’re gonna you’re gonna have to choose to believe the best that they didn’t see you, although you really think they did.
You’re gonna believe that they didn’t. And you’re gonna keep your peace because your peace is your power.
Did you hear what I said? Your peace is your power.
I can’t control what everybody out there does, and neither can you but god has given us a spirit of discipline and self control so we can control ourselves with god’s help if we really want to.
Amen? So I’m gonna talk to you this weekend about offense, and strife, both of which I believe are just demonic spirits that are sent out from hell to steal the anointing, to steal god’s blessings, and to steal our peace.
There’s so many wonderful scriptures in the Bible about not giving offense, not taking offense, not being offended by the truth, not being offended by trouble, When Dave and I started the ministry, the way it is now, I get home bible studies for 5 years and worked at another church for 5 years, but now For 30 years, we’ve had the privilege of birthing and starting up this ministry.
And There were three things that god put in my heart when I first started.
And I felt that he said very clearly, if you do these things, I’ll bless you.
And one of them was keep the strife out of your life.
And I have found out if I’m going to keep the strife out of my life, I’m gonna have to really want to And I’m gonna have to work at it, and I have to be the one that’s gonna be first to be a peacemaker, even if nobody else is.
And, um, the more you do it, the easier it gets, because the more you refuse to live with bitterness, resentment, anger, and unforgiveness, and strife and offense, the more you realize how useless it all is.
And how it doesn’t solve your problems, it doesn’t change the people.
I mean, really, staying mad at somebody that hurt you is like, taking poison, hoping you’re in a meal die.
It you you don’t hurt them at all. By doing that, you only hurt yourself.
And so He said, keep the strife out of your life.
Do everything that you do with excellence, and always be a person of integrity.
And I believe that those are 3 very important things, but strife, keeping the strife out of your life, is very, very important.
And sometimes in the beginning, it can almost seem like a full time job, because if you’re not very good at it, if it’s an area of weakness for you, the devil’s always gonna find some way to try to get you stirred up and upset about something.
I always like to say the devil sets us up to get us upset.
He knows what buttons to push at what time to get us bothered by something, and I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet or not but anytime you’re getting ready to go hear the word.
If he can get you rattled in any way, so you come in you know, with your church face, but all stirred up on the inside.
Cause actually, the Bible says in James, and this is a powerful scripture that the seed of the word must be sown in a heart of peace by someone who works for and makes peace.
Order for it to bear good fruit.
So that means I’ve gotta get here in peace, and you need to get here in peace.
Otherwise, things that we say.
And, you know, the word is so I mean, it’s not just like going to church, or I’m gonna go see what joyce looks like in real life.
I mean, the word of god God’s word amazes me. Please love the word.
Love the word of god.
And so we have worked really hard over the years to keep the strife out of our life.
And to try to walk in peace. And I’ll be honest with you.
I could not be mad at my husband and get up here and preach.
I don’t care how much crow I had to eat.
We would have to come to terms of peace before I stood up here. I just absolutely cannot do it.
Because if there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s phoning us. Amen?
And I remember enough years of my life going to church, me and Dave mad at each other bought all the way there and probably would fight all the way home.
But when we got in the building, praise the lord. Thank you, Jesus. Glory to god.
And I’ll tell you what I know that that stuff just I’m sure god’s just like really people.
So tonight, we’re gonna talk about not taking offense.
I can’t guarantee you that somebody won’t try to give you some.
But it’s up to us whether we want to take it or not.
Amen? So what is an offense?
The word offense in the Greek is the word scandal on. Very interesting word.
It actually describes the name of a part, just a little part on a trap that held the bait that lured an animal into that trap.
You know, uh, an animal is not gonna go in a trap without some kind of bait.
You gotta make it look good or smell good. Or something.
You know, Satan in the Garden of Eden, he baited Eve, and he baited her with there’s something that god knows that you don’t know.
And are you sure that he told you that you couldn’t eat a every tree of the garden, making it sound like god was withholding something from her.
And so she got her mind working And I tell you what, when you think too much in the top of your head and don’t use enough discernment, you’re on your way out before you ever get in.
Because if you think that Satan does not work day and night to try to deceive you, he does.
He absolutely does. But you know what?
We’re smarter than he is because we’ve got the mind of Christ, and we know the truth of god’s word.
Amen? You know how offense is?
You may be alright if you’re not seeing the person that offended you, but boy, you run into him somewhere inside.
I don’t even know what I’m talking about.
You know, I don’t play these stupid games anymore, but when I used to get mad at Dave, I wouldn’t go in the room where he was at.
I’m I’m not I’m not gonna be be with you.
Well, Dave didn’t care.
He’d sit and watch television, have a good time, but I thought I was really getting him back, you know, by putting up my walls and not I’m I’m not gonna talk to you.
He probably thought good. Get some quiet for a change.
So it’s interesting to me, and I hope to you that an offense in the Greek is actually bait for a trap.
So keep in mind when somebody offends you, It may not even be I guess we need to ask the question, are they offending me, or am I getting offended?
Because see, some we just have do any of you just have touchy days?
Come on. All the women got their hands up again. Some got both hands up. You know?
You know how it is? I mean, something can happen one time.
A person could do something one time or say something one time, don’t bother you at all.
But boy, if it’s a bad hormone day, they can say the same thing And, man, now you are upset.
You are tired of it. You’re not putting up with it anymore.
And you are cutting them out of your wife, period, into the conversation.
So let let’s just say this.
It’s not gonna do any good to go on with this teaching if you’re not gonna be willing to say, okay, I’m gonna take responsibility for being offended.
I I’m no longer gonna put that responsibility on everybody else to not offend me.
Don’t make me come down there.
Do you know how much we deflect our problems onto other people?
Well, you, well, you, well, you. And if you didn’t, and if you did, then I’d be happy.
And if you didn’t upset me, then I wouldn’t feel this way.
But god gives us self control.
If you don’t understand that, that means the ability to control yourself.
There’s no gift called others control.
I can’t control what others do all the time, but I do have a spirit of self control.
So we have to take responsibility for our stuff.
We will never ever be free from any problem as long as we’re blaming somebody else for it.
Got that.
We’ll never be free from any problem as long as we’re blaming somebody.
And you’re like, I know. I know. I’m not saying they didn’t do anything wrong.
I’m just trying to teach you how you can be free no matter what they do.
Come on. Trying to teach you how you can be free no matter what they do.
Because when it all comes down to it, if you don’t care enough about yourself, to run your life in such a way that you can enjoy it, probably nobody else is going to either.
It’s time to stand up for yourself and say, I’m not gonna live in bondage anymore, and that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna keep every you’re gonna have everything out there be the way you want it to be.
It means that you’re gonna take responsibility to not buy into that nonsense because it’s all the the devil anyway.
And if nothing else work, of the time you get as old as me, you just won’t have any time to be angry anymore.
I don’t have any days left to waste.
So John Bevere wrote a great book on strife called The Bay of Satan.
And, uh, so it it’s the bait that the enemy uses, and he will use things that will get your mind churning or get your emotions stirred up.
Satan uses bait to lure us into a lifetime of bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness, strife, hatred and revenge.
So it starts out as a hangnail, but you know, a hangnail, if you don’t take care of it properly, Even a paper cut, if you don’t take care of it properly, I mean, that thing can begin to fester and it can get infected, and it can cause you big, big, big, big, big problems.
Let me tell you something. It’s so much better to take care of a problem when it’s little.
And and it’s also good to take care of it as quickly as possible.
Before it has any opportunity to take roots. Amen?
I’ve learned the quicker I forgive somebody the easier it’s gonna be.
The sooner I decide to believe the best, the easier it’s gonna be. And I’ve come to the point.
I don’t even even if you did mean it, I don’t care.
I’m gonna believe the best because I’m not gonna waste my day.
You’re you’re we’re getting a breakthrough. I can tell.
Okay. Who wants to hear a Dave story?
I have a brand new Dave story.
This is hot off the press.
I don’t know that I could preach if I wasn’t married to Dave.
He continually provides me with sermon material. You should hear me at home. He’ll do something.
I’ll say, yep. That’ll preach. Yep. They’ll preach. Okay.
So Dave and I, this January, were married 49 years. 49 years.
Now Dave was a wonderful man, but he’s not a gift buyer, which could be a problem because one of my love languages is gifts.
The other one is acts of service. So he is good at that.
He he, you know, Dave’s just like, He’d take trash out.
I mean, I think if I wanted something from the store at 10 o’clock at night, he’d get dressed and go get it if I ask him to.
So, you know, this is not a let’s put Dave down night because he is a wonderful wonderful man.
But you know how we are. Sometimes we focus too much on what somebody’s not.
And we totally forget about everything they are because we get used to that stuff.
We begin to take what people do for granted And so for some reason this year, Well, Dave was in Florida.
I was in St. Louis, and I was gonna go to Florida, but we couldn’t be together on an anniversary.
So People were saying things to me like, um, well, I bet they will have something special planned when you get there.
And I’m thinking, probably not.
And, uh, now let me just say, I don’t know why this 49 year bothered me because he didn’t do anything on 45 or 46 or 47 or 48.
I mean, it’s it’s not even 50 yet. I could’ve waited and got mad at 50, but no.
So in my I got this expectation.
And, you know, now I just wanna say this for good measure and be sure you get this.
Sometimes it’s not even people that are disappointing us and offending us.
It’s our expectation that we put on those people.
Well, I thought you would.
Well, I expected you too. Oh, you did. Right?
And, um, so morning of the anniversary, I’m thinking, well, he’s gonna call me, wish me a happy anniversary.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. So finally I called him, and I waited around to see if he was gonna say anything.
It didn’t say anything.
So finally, I said, well, I guess you’re not gonna say anything, so happy anniversary.
And he said, oh, is that today?
Well, I took the bait Uh, I took the bait, but I was fighting to get out of the trap because I know I know all about this.
So thankfully, it was a few days before I was gonna see him, so I got a chance to try to talk myself off the ledge.
I mean, if you know what I mean by that, you’re you’re ready, you’re like, I’m gonna and I’m gonna and, boy, I’m gonna and so I I mean, I, you know, you get some spiritual smarts after 40 years.
So I’m like, okay, god, I’m not gonna be offended. I know Dave loves me. I was talking to myself.
And so I got okay.
But I still had this thing in the back of my head.
That when I got there, that surely he would do something.
Well, Then people started to say to me before I left. I think it was my friend Penny.
She said, So what did Dave get you from your anniversary?
And I said nothing, and she said nothing. I think.
Well, a couple of my kids came over, and, uh, they said, so Did that get you did that do anything for anniversary?
I said, uh, no. And they were like, So how many of you can see how the devil’s feeding this?
Okay. It’s like He was not gonna I was good on 48.
Good on 47, but 49 became something else.
I’m doing this to show you how we can just get things cooked up in our head.
And I know he loves me.
I mean, nobody would put up with me for 49 years if he didn’t love me.
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The mind actually is the battlefield.
That’s where we win or lose the war satan. He said all he gets to Satan. He uses it.
He uses a lot of it. Today’s mine. You start asking god to heal you, and he will store.
It’s the god of all comfort, and I am so grateful that I know how to call on god.