“We should forfeit our right to be offended.”

A thought by Brant Hansen (2015-04-14) from his book, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (p. 2). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Now that is an offensive statement. That would make some people angry. Some would say, “I have a right to be angry. You don’t know what they did to me”

But here is what Brant says, “We should forfeit our right to be offended. That means forfeiting our right to hold on to anger. When we do this, we’ll be making a sacrifice that’s very pleasing to God. It strikes at our very pride. It forces us not only to think about humility, but to actually be humble.” And we know what God thinks about pride and humility, don't we?

Brant goes on, “I used to think it was incumbent upon a Christian to take offense. I now think we should be the most refreshingly unoffendable people on a planet that seems to spin on an axis of offense.”

He then says something that is so good, “Forfeiting our right to anger makes us deny ourselves, and makes us others-centered. When we start living this way, it changes everything. Actually, it’s not even ‘forfeiting’ a right, because the right doesn’t exist. We’re told to forgive, and that means anger has to go, whether we’ve decided our own anger is ‘righteous’ or not.”

Think of this, “God is ‘allowed’ anger, yes. And other things, too, that we’re not, like, say— for starters— vengeance. That’s His, and it makes sense, too, that we’re not allowed vengeance. Here’s one reason why: We stand as guilty as whoever is the target of our anger. But God? He doesn’t. For that matter, God is allowed to judge too. You’re not. We can trust Him with judgment, because He is very different from us. He is perfect. We can trust Him with anger. His character allows this. Ours doesn’t. God loves you and thinks you’re special, but no . . . you’re not God.”

Wow, this world would be really different if we Christians would follow this.

How much would your and my world be different if we followed this?

Comments

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