By Pastor John Osa
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Are you easily offended? Do you store offenses, waiting for people to apologise — and when you don’t get those apologies do you become bitter?
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If this is where you are, you are not a candidate for the resting place of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit can’t stay in a person carrying around offenses from what has been done against them.
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The dove is the only animal that has no bitter substance near the heart, making it the perfect vehicle to symbolise the Holy Spirit entering into the world in a bodily form when the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized in the river Jordan.
If the Holy Spirit chose a dove, an animal without bitterness as His symbolic vehicle of entrance into the world, He would maintain the standard to use only human vessels without bitterness to continue to work on earth.
Offense vs bitterness
Offenses arise from the bad things that people do to you but bitterness is the bad experience from offenses that you allow to remain in you and to take root in your heart. This will not only hinder your walk with the Lord on earth, it will disqualify you from entering heaven because it will be counted as unforgiveness.
Luke 17:1 KJV — Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him , through whom they come!
We can’t escape offenses — they will surely come, but how you handle it is the issue.
There are a few things that can remove anyone from the grace of God. The Bible lists bitterness as one of those few things — even listing it ahead of fornication!
Hebrews 12:15-16 KJV — …looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you , and thereby many be defiled; [16] Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
This is why Satan is moving people against us to scandalise and offend us, hoping we get so mad, we become bitter and fall short of the grace of God.
As I asked the Lord what He wanted to say tonight as we come close to the preparation countdown to Pentecost 2018, He said to remind us of the trap of offenses and bitterness.
A trap stops the progress of anyone or anything that falls into it.
‘I can’t stand you’
I once heard someone say to me: “You have done nothing wrong to me but I don’t just like you.”. And I think he added: “I can’t stand you.”
This was a believer. The good news was, we eventually became friends and one day he said to me: “If I could choose the first three people in my life, I would choose you as one of them.”
God gave me grace not to be offended when he said he could not stand me. I just kept on being the person I am, zealous and embracing to all and love won.
As we come into this womb of the morning, three days to Pentecost 2018, we need to allow the Lord to shine His light into our hearts to deal with hidden offenses and bitterness.
During a midweek service on Wednesday we shared that if Peter hadn’t allow the word of God to convict him after he betrayed the Lord, He would never have made it to the upper room for Pentecost.
Many won’t make it to the spiritual upper room on May 20 for Pentecost 2018 when the covenant of the Holy Spirit is renewed upon the earth and over the Church.
Let us thank the Father for His mercies upon us to remind us of the traps of offense
Let us plead the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ over this womb of the morning to cleanse it from all voices and veils of darkness
Let us thank the Father for Pentecost 2018 and the promises and prophecies that will be fulfilled through it.
Let us thank the Father for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that will be renewed this year over the Church
Let us ask the Father for grace to be counted among those that will be caught up in the cloud of glory in the upper room of heaven.
Let us repent
Let us repent to the Lord for the offenses we allowed to become bitterness in our hearts when we felt justified to be bitter.
Let us ask the Father to remove the root of bitterness from our hearts.
This root of bitterness may have spread to become cancer and other health=related problems, but the doorway may have been bitterness.
Let us ask the Father to uproot every seed of bitterness from the deepest part of our hearts, body and soul
Let us plead with the Lord to cleanse us by His blood from the spills of offenses and bitterness in our hearts, memories and organs
Let us ask the Father to cause us to rise above the traps of offense and bitterness through the communion that we are about to partake of.
Let us ask the Father to guard our hearts from the arrows of offenses and bitterness that has already been set against us.
Let us thank the Father for answered prayers.
Amen !
Brilliant