Offenses

This is Satan’s ultimate plan for destruction of love, purpose, and your happiness.

People get offended about all kinds of things:

•  We get offended when our husband don’t recognize our need for a break.
•  We get offended when someone at church doesn’t talk to us.
•  We get offended when someone else is chosen to lead a ministry.
•  We get offended when we aren’t invited to a ladies group.
•  We get offended when our children don’t do what we ask them.
•  Some of us even get offended at God.

Yes, I did say that. How many of us complain when we don’t get what WE want out of life? How many are angry at their situation? How many get mad because they are “stuck” with a no good husband? How about angry that your van isn’t as nice as your best friends? How about if you even get a little upset at God because He didn’t answer your prayers the way you wanted?

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to being completely free in life is to not take offense.

Ohhh, those are touchy topics and sounds like a lot of negativity!!! It is hard to go through things and think it just isn’t fair that you have to do them. I haven’t gone through as much as some people have in life, but I have gone through trials. There were many times, I was angered at God and other people for my “lot” in life. But you know, none of that mattered. None of it hurt anyone but ME. I was the one that suffered with anger and built up frustration. It only led to me taking offense the next time I ran into someone and they said something that “rubbed me the wrong way.” I just kept building little offenses over and over until they built into a big one and then some unfortunate person would get the brunt of it. Most of the time it was my husband and children. Then I would pray and ask God to help me rid myself of my anger, but it would keep coming back. What was I doing wrong??
The bible says in Matthew 5:24 that we are to leave our gifts at the altar and then go and be reconciled to our brothers FIRST and then come back and offer our gifts. Do you think God wants us to FIRST get rid of our offense so that we can worship Him freely ? Yes He does. Then, He can accept our worship and listen to our prayers and answer them.
But what if you say that you don’t actually “hate” someone you are just offended by them? You may be right. Offenses by themselves are generally not anger, hurt feelings, or resentment. But what happens is those annoyances and irritations have the unfortunate ability to build into grudges. These usually lead to sins that a person has allowed themselves to be led into. The sad part is that it is usually done by the persons own mind. After some time your heart has become hardened and anger takes root. You may not think of it as anger but that is what it is called.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Matthew 24:10

This is a sign of the end times. It says that MANY WILL BE OFFENDED. They will distrust and desert those they should obey. They will stumble and fall away.

There is a greater attack from the enemy than any other time in history.

If Satan can keep us angry, verse 12 of Matthew says that the LOVE OF PEOPLE WILL GROW COLD.
This is what we need to be on the watch for. Offenses are strings that add up over and over again. When we see someone whom we have offense at, we may not think that it doesn’t matter, but what it is doing is causing our love to grow cold. It causes our hearts to shut out the goodness and blessing that God has for us. If we truly want to be free and live the life to the fullest then we need to stop taking offense.

Up next, learn the types of offense and how you can be offended….there may be more than you think (smile)

ENJOY THIS POST??? GET THE WHOLE BOOK DOWNLOADED FOR FREE HERE

Image courtesy of [David Castillo Dominici] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

sharing at wholeheartedhome.com, momsmorningcoffee.com, fdeanhackett.com

 

After moving down to the south, my husband kept saying, “you should embrace some southern recipes.”  Now knowing my husband, he was referring to deep fried foods.  I even saw deep fried pickles at the store?? Interesting. Well as a wife who cares of her husbands health,  I avoid deep fried anything.  But I noticed that they sell collard greens very inexpensively at the stores.  I started looking up collard green recipes.  I came across multiple soup recipes and have tried a few, but I came up with my own rendition and this suits us great.

The first one we did contained northern beans and it looked like this.

What I did for this recipe, was to fill a pot up with chicken stock.  If you don’t have that you can use bouillon cubes and water mixed together.  I added an onion chopped up as well as a few spoonfuls of minced garlic.  I let this come to a full boil and then added my 2 cans of northern beans.  For my thickener, I added mashed potato flakes.  I add a cup at a time, until my favorite consistency.    I then added one bunch of collard greens, that I chopped up into bite sized chunks.  I let it simmer another 1/2 hour and then served it.

When I served this, I sprinkled some parmesan cheese over it. I enjoyed it very much, but my children were less than thrilled.  Especially with all the new “green” stuff.  I had to switch it up a bit.

I came up with this:

I started out with the same pot of chicken stock, added an onion, few scoops of garlic and a package of mixed frozen vegetables.  I let that cook for about 20 minutes.  I then added some beans, I actually had Garbanzo beans on hand and added those.  Whatever you enjoy.  We cut up some smoked sausage and added that as well.  I did the same thing for the thickener—used potato flakes. But I mixed it with some milk before I added it.  Equal amounts—-2 cups milk, 2 cups potato flakes—then whisk it in.   I added pepper this time, to make it a little more spicy.  After at a good consistency I added a package of cut up collard greens.  I put in the entire big bag.

This made a big batch of soup, I was able to freeze it into containers for later on.  I actually got the collard greens cheaply,because they were going bad, so I made soup that day and froze it for later.  Whenever we want soup, we just heat and serve.

I have found that my children actually enjoy this kind.  Yes, I have those that still dislike the collard greens, but most of them will eat the majority of their soup.  It is a keeper and a new regular rotation in our food menu.