In order to fully understand the damaging impact of offence, it is important to observe the ways in which it affects us. Offence steals our joy. It is destructive to our lives and can kill if we allow it. It affects us individually as well as our relationship with God and others. It is like a cancer that eats us up, and like a virus that spreads and infects others around us. Offence can affect your spiritual growth as a Christian and unsettle both your mind and body. It is the root of all bitterness and can lead to tension, conflict, misbehaviour and the weakening of our faith.

Through offence, many have been distracted or diverted from their destiny; they have lost their focus, position, status and even their anointing. Offence can change your nature or character, influence your relationships, lead you into disgrace or even turn you into a criminal. It can drag you into litigation with adverse financial consequences and implications. Offence can make you arrogant, cause you to speak or act contrary to your intellectual capability. It can make you lose authority and make you forget what God has promised you. It can also cause you to lose what you have laboured for.

Offence can affect your prayer life, destroy your home, take away your privileges, lead you to create alliances with ‘wrong’ people and cause havoc in relationships with relatives, friends, church members, work colleagues, business partners and the community in which we live and work. It also brings about disunity and wrecks fellowship between believers. It is our reactions that create the problems associated with offence.

Offences are the devises of the enemy to obstruct you from reaching your goal.

Be Mindful

Sometimes we allow the enemy to put poisonous thoughts into our minds. It is good to ask ourselves the following questions:

• How do we respond to our mind’s promptings?
• What caused us to react the way we did?
• Did we find out if there was truth or falsehood in what we heard or saw?
• Could it just be wrong thoughts because of the sentiments in our hearts, or some past experience?

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DANGERS OF OFFENCE BY LAWRENCE TETTEH