Correction Is Not Your Enemy, Offense Is! – Wednesday Morning Service

Many believers struggle with accepting correction, viewing it as judgment or condemnation. However, this resistance, known as offense, is the true hindrance to spiritual growth and clarity. The teachings emphasize that Correction is not your enemy; Offense is. By recognizing correction as a form of divine training and love, believers can unlock true freedom and continue to see the truth of the Gospel.

---

1. Understanding Correction as Divine Training and Love

Correction is fundamentally tied to God’s deep, passionate love for His people, serving as a guiding mechanism, not punishment.

Correction is Training, Not Punishment

Correction is God’s way of training and educating believers, leading them toward a certain destination. The sources compare correction to a GPS: if you make a wrong turn, the GPS corrects you to get you back on the right path.

It is essential for believers to constantly receive correction, just as they constantly receive blessings.

• God’s Love in Action: The Father’s discipline comes only from His passionate love and pleasure for you. Even when correction seems harsh, it is higher and better than any guidance an earthly father can provide, because God is love and His plans are to prosper you and give you an expected end, not to harm you.
• A Recipient Mentality: Under the gospel of grace, believers are recipients—constantly receiving from God. It is contradictory to want to constantly receive blessings but resist constant correction, as correction is considered a part of the blessing.
• The Gospel of Grace is Corrective: The gospel of grace itself is a corrective teaching that constantly works to remove the old ideas, thoughts, and beliefs ingrained by years of religion.

The Need for Teachability

To receive correction, one must remain teachable—always remaining a student.

• Avoiding Ignorance: To learn the truth, you must long to be teachable. Conversely, if you despise correction, you remain ignorant, and people die from a lack of knowledge.
• The Know-It-All Trap: Many people, especially on social media, act as know-it-alls, believing they know everything, which makes it hard for the gospel to reach them. True believers, like their pastors, understand they don’t know it all and it’s a constant journey of getting to know more.
• Learning from Anyone: Remaining teachable means being willing to learn something from anybody, even from a homeless person.

2. The Hindrance of Offense

Offense is the primary spiritual blockage that prevents believers from accepting correction and seeing the truth.

Offense Blinds You to Truth

Offense hinders you from seeing the truth about what you are being corrected for. When the speaker was personally offended by correction received in the ministry, the offense hindered him from seeing the truth of his mistake until God intervened. The devil seeks to keep minds blinded from the truth through offense.

The Devastation of Offense

Offense is spreading everywhere, characterized by people being easily offended and joining the “offense bandwagon”.

• The Devil’s Goal: The devil’s agenda is to use offense to discredit the gospel of grace so that it doesn’t impact the world. If a minister preaches the gospel and someone is offended, and then the minister gets offended at their offense, both are digging a ditch for themselves.
• A Snare of the Devil: Offended people are often under the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him.
• Criminal Offense Analogy: The term repeated offender can be applied to spiritual offense, as repeating or harping on a matter causes separation, even between close friends.

Offense in the Church and Culture

The sources reveal that offense is a major issue both inside and outside the church:

• Self-Righteous Offense: Unbelief is a setup where that which is highly esteemed by faith (grace) seems scandalous and offensive to the self-righteous mind. Grace often offends the typical law of works mentality because there is no room left for boasting or taking credit.
• Cultural Offense: Offense is exploited in culture, such as in gang culture where one gang became offended by a rival gang’s color, leading to violence.
• Unbelief: Unbelief causes people to refuse to see the reverence of their original identity revealed and redeemed in Christ.

3. Overcoming Offense: The Posture of Love and Gentleness

Since offense is inevitable in life, especially when sharing the gospel, believers must adopt a specific posture and approach correction with divine love.

The Proper Posture: Listening and Patience

God wants believers to maintain a posture of being a ready listener.

• Quick to Hear, Slow to Speak: Every man should be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Being a ready listener helps you avoid being too quick to move without hearing God’s instruction.
• Avoiding Anger: Anger is a “fruit of offense” that the devil wants, because when you get angry, you make dumb decisions, which leads to the gospel being discredited.
• Baby Steps: Sometimes, when dealing with people who are offended, you must take baby steps, such as simply hugging them or loving them, rather than immediately preaching the gospel.

Correcting and Relating in Love

Correction, whether given or received, must be steeped in courtesy, gentleness, and love.

• The Goal of Repentance: The purpose of correcting opponents is the hope that God may grant that they will repent, change their mind, and come to know the truth.
• Modeling Love: The leaders of the ministry correct with love, ensuring those being corrected do not feel condemned or shameful. When correction is not felt with love, it won’t be received.
• Love as the Standard: All faith and spiritual understanding are nothing without love. People do not care what you know until they know you care.
• No Offense in Love: There is no offense in love at all. When you are filled with and standing in God’s love, the actions of others will not move you.

Living Without Offense

The ultimate goal is to be sincere and without offense until the day of Christ’s return. This is possible when your love abounds more and more in all knowledge and judgment.

• True Freedom: When you continue to embrace all that Jesus teaches, you prove you are a true follower, and if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your life. This freedom (from addictions, trauma, and the streets) is what God desires for everyone.
• Putting Others First: When preaching the gospel, believers should not be hindrances by giving offense, but should strive to please and accommodate themselves to others’ desires and interests, not aiming at their own profit, but that of the many in order that they may be saved. This means putting personal liberty or preference second.