how thick is your skin?

Now we all know God is love, do you think it is possible for love to offend someone?  I want to draw your attention to an incident in the Gospel of Mathew and allow the Word of God to answer this question.
 
Mathew 15:11-12 & 14 It is not what goes into the mouth that  defiles a man but what comes out.  Then the disciples said to   Jesus, You offended the Pharisees when they heard You say    that.  Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind.
 
Jesus was informing the pharisees that they were talking trash and calling it Bible.  Jesus was love and love always speaks the truth, the truth offends a lot of people because it exposes errors they thought were carefully concealed.  A lot of men are too prideful to take responsibility for their error, so they just claim to be offended and choose to be “the victim”.  Men who take offense fall into the snare of the fowler, they ensnare themselves to the devil unaware.  Jesus said there is only one way out of the snare, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.  Pride is such a stronghold a lot of men cannot acknowledge the truth and see themselves free.  They have very thin skin and they would choose a lie over the truth to protect their hide.
 
So, did Jesus offend those pharisees?  No, the truth did, all He did was speak what He heard His Father say.  Now, what can we learn from this incident?  First of all, taking an offense will put you in bondage to the devil.  So, all of this comes down to a decision, determine in your heart that you will never let anything offend you.  No matter what people say to you or about you, you will not take offense.  If you will do this, then the devil will never be able to ensnare you, so you will always be free.  Over the years I have watched hundreds of good people go back and no longer walk with the Lord because the truth would not be compatible with their lifestyle.  In every case the Lord said, let them alone, they are the blind leading the blind, they are the only ones who can recover themselves out of the snare of the fowler.
 
2 Timothy 2:25 In meekness instruct those that oppose themselves; if God will perhaps give them repentance when they acknowledge the truth.
 
Men who take offense are they themselves the only ones who can get themselves free.  Can you imagine a man becoming so hardened that they would rather fellowship with the devil than admit they are wrong?  Their only hope of freedom is the truth and they don’t want it, remember the truth is the Holy Spirit.  To reject truth is to reject God and that’s what got lucifer where he’s at today.  When lucifer failed, he learned how to tempt man, he just uses what enslaved him.
 
We all have the choice, we can be a victim or we can be victorious.  The Lord set before Israel two options, they could choose life or death and then he coaxed them to choose life.  But some of the fools chose death, they chose the path of least resistance.  Some folks have determined that serving God is too hard and so they became servants of the devil and teach themselves to live under the curse.  Determine in your heart to grow an extra layer of skin, you can use it to swat the devil out of your way on the way to collect your blessings.

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