Good morning and welcome to Supernatural Saturday.
We are so glad that you're able to join us.
We have a lot of new people, so I always give the spiel at the beginning of Supernatural
Saturday that this is a time where we all gather together, as many people as are able
and available, and we look to the Lord for what is the current prophetic reality.
What does God have to say to us individually, but also corporately?
I believe that this is a community, this is a movement.
All of you have certain things in common.
One of the things you have in common is that you're revivalists.
If you didn't know you were revivalists, look at yourself in the mirror and say, I'm a revivalist,
because you are.
God has chosen you to be a revivalist in the area of marriage and family.
We have something in common, and God is moving us.
A movement has to move, so he's moving us forward.
The way that he's moving us forward is through revelation.
This is a time of revelation.
This is a time where we gather, and usually it's me that is leading the Supernatural Saturday.
In case you haven't noticed, God has given me a revelatory gift.
I didn't ask for it, and I didn't know I was going to get it, and I did.
The way that I knew that I got it is because when I began to speak, I've been in ministry
for 28 years now, but when I began to speak, even as a younger woman, I would say things
beyond my pay grade.
I wouldn't think things beyond my pay grade.
That's an important differentiation.
I want you to think about that for a second.
I wouldn't think them, I would just say them.
It's kind of scary when you open your mouth and you say things that you're not even thinking.
I want to let you know that, because guess what?
When you hear it, everyone else is hearing it, but you're also hearing it for the first
time along with them.
It's not something that you've been sitting around thinking about, and now you're going
to say it out loud so other people can hear it.
No, you're saying it from the Holy Spirit, and so oftentimes, I'm hearing it for the
very first time right along with you.
That can get a little scary, because you might say things that you're like, ooh, what did
I just say?
What in the world was that, right?
I want to let you guys know that today, I want to offend you.
Today on Supernatural Saturday, I'm hoping to offend you, all right?
If you get offended, then yay, because that is the whole purpose of today.
We're going to talk about offense.
You might wonder, hey, Jackie, how do you know what to talk about on Supernatural Saturday?
Once again, I lean into the Spirit, I lean into that revelatory gift and into Holy Spirit,
the gift giver.
I don't just lean into the gift.
I lean into the gift giver for these Supernatural Saturdays, but also, sometimes, there's just
a little seed.
There's a little seed that happens during the week where I'm like, oh, yeah, I see
that, Lord.
I know what you're saying.
You're saying, we need to address that so that we can move forward, because remember
what I said, movements move.
It's important for us to be able to move forward, because if we don't move forward, then we're
not a movement, okay?
Revival revives.
It resurrects things that are dead.
Something's happening.
There's action associated with what God has called all of us to do.
In order to have action, a lot of times, we have to have those blocks removed, and
so a little seed will drop into my heart during the week, and oftentimes, you guys, it's something
that's affecting me.
I'm willing to volunteer as tribute.
I'm willing to go first, and so if something's happening to me during the week, if I'm feeling
discouraged or in this case, if I'm feeling offended, overly offended, then I know, oh,
the weapon of mass destruction that the enemy is using against this movement is offense,
and I'm not saying that other people in the world aren't being offended.
I mean, we live in a time where people are the most easily offended that I've ever seen
in my 50 years on this earth, and the Bible talks about that.
We're going to get into that in just a second, but we cannot be offended, because it's time
for us to move forward, and I'm going to show you in just a couple minutes how offense will
keep you stuck.
It's a gift in some ways that can cause you to have major promotion and upgrade.
That's why I'm hoping to offend you today, and then it can also be a stumbling block,
so Father God, we thank you for your goodness to us.
We thank you for your love.
We thank you for revelation and wisdom.
We thank you for the wisdom that comes with humility, and so we lean into that this morning.
We're not going to be wise in our own eyes, Lord.
We're not going to think that we know it all.
We're not going to think that we're discerning when we're really bitter and jealous and offended.
Lord, we just lean into your truth and into your love that comes without offense.
We're asking you to point to the hurting and hard places of our heart this morning as we
offer those places up to you, for you to tenderize them, for you to make them soft again so that
they can receive your truth and your word and we can be transformed in Jesus name. Amen.
All right, you guys, let's get offended together. You want to get offended? So like I said,
it's a couple of minutes ago. Well, first of all, let's talk about the word offense.
Some of you may know this, you may not know this, but you know, I have talked about offense
before in my 28 years and I've heard a lot of teaching on offense and I've read books on offense
because I told you what kind of family I came from. A lot of you, if you're new,
you might not know my full story, but I had plenty of reasons to be offended in life,
at people, but also at God. That's important that we understand that just starting off
Supernatural Saturday today, that yes, a lot of times when we think of the word offense,
we think of being offended at people. We think of being irritated and annoyed by people,
angry at people, unforgiving towards people, but it also can be a situation
where you've become offended at God because of what has happened, because of what hasn't
happened because of what you perceive and think is happening. That's why it's so important,
friends, that we continue to use those heartwork tools and one of those heartwork tools is
repentance. And the word repentance just simply means we're turning away from the way that we
see things and the way we're doing things and we're reconnecting with God's perceptions.
It's easy to become offended when we're in our own perceptions, right? But repentance saying,
I'm willing to lay down what I think is happening here and I'm willing to allow you to show me
what's happening here. I'm going to stop going the direction that I'm going right now and I'm
going to go your direction. I'm going to stop thinking the thoughts that I'm thinking right
now and I'm inviting you to replace my thoughts with your thoughts. It's important. I see some
people asking, hey, is disappointment, discouragement, or, you know, of course,
bitterness, envy, jealousy. I think that all of those are associated with offense. I think they're
all different than offense. I think offense can lead to a lot of things, right? As some things
can lead to offense. Let's talk about the word offense really quickly. In the Greek, that word
is the word scandalon. Kind of like a scandal, right? In Greek, the word offense is the word
scandalon. Do you know what a scandalon is? A scandalon is the part of a trap that dangles
down and holds the bait. Think of a trap. Picture a trap right now. You're going to trap an animal,
okay, for what purpose? To take them to slaughter, y'all. These traps were used to trap the animal,
capture the animal to take them and then slaughter them. And this scandalon was the
part of the trap that hung down and it held the bait. It held the thing that was going to attract
the animal into the trap. You guys, we could just kind of stop right there and just pray for the
rest of the time together because it's very obvious that offense is a trap of the enemy.
To take us where? To slaughter. To take us to a place of destruction.
There's a lot of things. There's a lot of teaching out there. I think there's even a book about
offense called The Bait of Satan. I remember someone suggested that I read that. If you guys
want to check that out, I think it's by John Bevere. I read it years and years and years ago,
probably 20 years ago when my pastor was going to prison.
Guys, we did not have a lot of time to warm up to the idea that our church was about to be taken
from us. This was a small church and you guys know what small churches are like. It's like a family.
It's an extended family. And I just want to tell you that it was my only extended family.
I started going to that church when I met Jesus at 22 years old. I had never really experienced
family. For those of you that know my history, once again, broken family, broken lives,
foster care, girls home. Not a lot of experience with being in family, in community, cared for by
And this was my first family, this pastor and his wife had become like pseudo parents to me.
The first parents, you know, that I could really lean into and trust in.
And then, of course, all the other people in the church becoming like mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters.
And so this was a huge loss for me.
And it happened overnight.
A lot of you can relate to that.
Where you went to bed one night and you woke up the next day and everything had changed.
Everything had shifted and not for the better.
I walked into church on a Tuesday night, we had Tuesday night prayer meeting every week, just like normal.
It was my night to be in the nursery.
Did that a couple of times a month because I had a toddler at the time.
And so I was in the nursery with my toddler, with my daughter and with some other toddlers.
But we had a TV in the nursery that showed the main service.
It didn't have any sound that night, but I remember glancing up at the television and just seeing people that I didn't recognize on the platform at the pulpit.
And there were only two children in the nursery at the time, it was my daughter and another little boy that was my friend's little child.
And so I took both of them and I went, I was like, what's going on?
Who are these people?
And so I went into the back of the sanctuary.
The door to the nursery was just right by the back door of one of the sides of the sanctuary.
And so I took the two children and I went into the back of the sanctuary and I sat on the back pew to find out what was going on.
And what was going on is these people had come to take and seize control of the church because the pastor was being indicted on 23 felonies.
You guys, that is how quick that unraveled.
That is how quick we found out there wasn't like rumors and whispers.
There wasn't any kind of lead up or prelude to this revelation.
It was like you came to church on a regular Tuesday night for Bible study.
And instead of Bible study, you had people standing up and screaming at each other in the sanctuary.
And it was just like all hell had broken loose, literally.
We call it Black Tuesday.
And you guys, I proceeded to have a nervous breakdown that day.
I mean, like for the months and months after that.
It was shocking.
It would have been easy to be offended at a lot of things in that moment.
But that book, The Bait of Satan, someone said, hey, you know, your church, the people at your church, you guys should read this, you know, and make sure that you stay out of offense.
You guys, there's a lot of you that have had really hard things happen.
Really hard things.
In the chat right now, say if that's you, you've had really hard things happen that you still to this day really don't fully understand.
You had losses of children.
They left the house, but they never came back.
They passed away in a car accident or some sort of evil violence towards them.
You lost a spouse.
You loved your marriage.
It was great.
It was wonderful.
And then they got sick and passed away, or they didn't get sick.
They just passed away.
They had a heart attack.
They had a stroke.
Something happened out of the blue, suddenly, but not in a good way.
You lost your fortune.
You lost your job.
People lied about you.
You woke up one day and realized that you were the villain of the story, that everyone was saying that you were the villain, that you were being lumped into, you know, the list of people that had done bad things, and now you're being indicted or you're being sued.
Some of you showed up to work at a job that you loved only to be let go, to be laid off, to be fired.
You're the one that showed up at the doctor's for just a regular checkup, and then you were told something, you know, terrible in your mind about your health or about, you know, your future.
You went through infidelity.
You thought you had a great marriage.
And then you woke up one day to realize that everything had been a lie, that the whole time this person had been living a double life.
They had been having affairs.
They had been unfaithful to you.
I'm just going through some of the scenarios of things that happen in people's lives.
that are hard and are terrible and are kind of like a living nightmare that you wish you
could wake up from.
Go ahead and take a moment to just allow that stuff to come into the chat there.
Right, a lot of people posting things.
So the danger of this, friends, is that when we've been through hard things, oftentimes
it makes our heart hard.
And that's really heart work 101, right?
The supernatural surrender to where God can begin to make our heart tender again.
And I write in my book about an event, and God reminded me of this this morning, this
story.
I haven't thought of this story in a long time.
But God reminded me this morning of something I write about in the heart work about this
dinner that I had at Captain D's, good old Captain, the good old Captain.
I don't even know if Captain D's even exists anymore.
It definitely probably shouldn't if it does, okay?
My offense towards the captain is still very real, but I will say that in my first marriage,
you know, my former husband, we met when we were 12 years old.
And in the time of us pen pal-ing and dating, quote unquote, long distance between 12 and
17, I had visited him a couple times, gone to a couple like Christmas banquets and different
things at his church with him.
And his parents weren't crazy about me.
And you know, and I have to say, for good reason, you guys, here's this kid being brought
up in a two parent Christian home, you know, really solid people.
And he likes this girl that's just, you know, a train wreck in a dumpster fire.
Every time he's writing to me, yes, this is back in the days when you wrote letters, there
was no internet, okay?
And phone calls were really expensive.
Do you guys remember when phone calls were expensive?
Long distance phone calls were expensive.
You could even do this thing called collect calls, where you could call someone and you
could have them take the charges of the phone call.
Because phone calls used to cost a lot of money, right?
Back in the day when that was the newest kind of technology out there.
And so we had phone calls, we had letters, but I was always somewhere different.
I was in a girl's home, I was in this foster care situation.
So I'm sure his parents are like, what in the world?
What in the world is our son doing with this girl?
So I moved, I was 19 years old, I was 18 years old, and I moved to their town because he
wanted me to move there and we were going to get married, okay?
So I moved there at 18 years old.
And this Captain D's dinner was my first kind of dinner with his family.
They hadn't seen me in years since I was a younger teenager.
And this was the great reveal at Captain D's.
At the time, I was working at a daycare.
And if you've ever worked at a daycare, God bless you.
But I was working at a daycare, it was the first job that I could get when I moved into
this new city.
I had just moved there to be with this boy.
And I was working at this daycare, I'd only been working there for a couple weeks.
When I went to Captain D's, I was really nervous.
Are they going to like me?
Are they going to accept me?
Are they going to let him date me and marry me?
Or are they going to block this relationship?
All of these thoughts swirling in my mind.
I'm trying to be on my best behavior.
And for you guys, for me, that's hard.
I frequently am on my worst behavior.
But I was going to be on my best behavior that day.
And remember, this is Jackie pre-Jesus.
I want to really make sure I'm emphasizing this.
I did not know Jesus yet.
And so I go to Captain D's.
And we sit down and we, you know, if you've never been there, it's just fast food.
You order your food, you sit down.
So we're sitting there.
And I take a bite into this fried fish.
It's like fried cod or something.
I take a bite of this fried fish and I'm listening and I'm nodding and I'm smiling.
And probably about 15 minutes into this dinner, you guys, I start to feel really bad.
Really sick.
Like I started to get flushed.
I started to have chills, but also I'm super hot and I'm sweating.
I started to feel nauseated.
And I just say to him, I just whispered to him, hey, I'm not feeling good.
I need to go home.
And he's like, what?
And I was like, yeah, all of a sudden, and you guys know what it's like.
Sometimes sickness just
comes out of left field and just hits you like a Mack truck, right?
Anybody else? Raise your hand. If that's ever happened to you,
you're feeling fine. And then all of a sudden, bam, you're not feeling good.
So I excused myself and I left and you guys,
I barely made it home vomiting fever,
the whole nine yards.
And I had never been that sick in current memory.
And I was sick for like over a week.
Weak as a kitten, unable to get out of bed.
And you guys, I just want to tell you for the longest time,
I blamed the captain for the longest time.
I was like, Oh, captain D's. It made me sick.
I have food poisoning that, that place, that food so nasty.
You know, this was what I believed.
I believed this for the longest time.
Every time I would drive by captain D's, I would just get mad inside.
I'd be like, Captain D's.
But you guys, in my early heartwork, God said, Hey, Oh, you know,
the only thing about captain D's. I mean,
why would God care if I'm offended at the captain?
Why would he care? I mean,
you and I both know that that food ain't kingdom, right?
That food's killing people every day. If it still exists.
I don't even know if it does, but he said to me, he said, Jackie,
I want you to know that when you entered into that place,
you were already carrying the virus.
And then he showed me that the virus came from the daycare.
It's something called kitty crud. You guys,
when you work with little children, they make you sick.
I'm just going to tell you that right now,
for those of you that are considering a future career with little children,
you better get your immune system up because you're going to need it.
I was already carrying the virus. You guys,
there's no possible way that the captain's food made me sick.
I was sick within 15 minutes of sitting down,
but I'd also been working with germy little children for the last couple of
weeks, doing something that my body and my immune system wasn't used to.
And the reason why this is important to our conversation today is because so
often we will come into communities. We will come into friendships.
We will come into relationships. Listen, please. And listen, clearly,
you will come into those things,
but you won't be able to get too far in because you'll immediately start to get
offended. And you will think that it is the place. It is the people.
It is the friendship. It is the budding relationship that is offending you,
but you are carrying the virus.
You are carrying the offense.
You brought it with you into this place.
You brought it with you.
It's unhealed trauma from your last relationship or from your
childhood or from a church that you used to go to.
Do you guys know how much of a miracle it is that I could go to church
someplace without sitting there and grumbling and complaining and
finding fault in judging? Because you guys remember,
write this down a critical and judgmental heart is a
offended heart.
Some of you come into this community and you grumble and you complain.
You send us emails about what we're not doing.
Instead of the 99 things we are doing.
Love ya. And then guess what?
I get the opportunity to be offended by you being offended.
If I want it to be, but I want to tell you guys,
what's interesting about this story is that I am not someone who's easily
offended.
Years ago, I prayed for this and maybe you can pray for this too. I said, God,
give me thick skin and a soft heart.
Let me understand that other people,
their stuff, it's not about me. People are hurting.
They have stuff because we don't have to personalize it and make it all about us.
Every time someone's upset. Yeah.
They could be directing that upset towards you.
They could be putting your name on it.
But if you go and you meditate on that and you bring it to God and you do your
heartwork and you see that it really isn't a you thing. It's a them thing.
Then you can just bless them.
You can just bless them. You don't got to take it personally.
And another thing that I just want to say right here, it's not in my notes,
but I'll make sure I say it. Do not take up the offense of someone else.
Okay.
I'm going to take up the offense of someone else.
I know that we really love people, and the people that we really love, they'll come to
us and they'll be mad at their boss, or they'll be mad at their husband or wife.
And they'll come and they'll start, you know, moaning and complaining.
And then pretty soon, you know, you're taking sides.
You're taking sides with them.
Like, oh, yeah, dirty, rotten scoundrel.
How dare they not take out the garbage for two days in a row?
Slacker, loser, listen.
Do not take up someone else's offense.
And this is why.
Offense is always pointing to an unhealed part of your heart.
Please write that down.
This is something the Lord taught me years and years ago, and it has really changed my
life.
Offense is a gift.
Now if you are someone who just lives in offense, it's not a gift.
It's going to be to your detriment and to your destruction.
So when offense comes, the initial feeling of being offended, it is a GPS that will point
you, if you know how to use the heart work tools, right to the root or the area of trauma
that's unhealed.
It'll point right to the unhealed part of your heart.
Because when you feel offense, you can't just feel it.
Remember how I say you can't just feel the feels, you have to heal the feels?
When you feel offense, you can't just feel it, you have to heal it.
And how do you do that?
I'm going to tell you right now.
You know that you're being offended by whatever's happening or whatever's being said, but now
you have to ask yourself an important question.
Why does this offend me?
You know that you're feeling offended.
You know that you are offended by this, but why?
Ask yourself, say, why am I offended?
Why does this offend me?
Why does this bother me?
And guess what?
You will get an answer.
You guys having a good time?
Inform your faces that you're having a good time.
Some of you look real mean right now, take a little smile.
Don't be offending me.
Why does it bother me?
Ask yourself that question, why?
Would anyone admit today?
Remember, we love the heartwork tool, James 5.16, confess your faults, your frailties,
your weaknesses, your offenses, if you want, and be healed.
Confession.
Confession is one of those things that pulls back the layers of the things, of the trauma
and gets to the root.
So would anyone raise their hand and just admit like in this season of your life that
you've kind of become easily offended, that you're touchy, that you're kind of bruised
and beat up.
And so it's really not hard for you to get offended.
You watch the news, you get offended.
You see people post on Instagram about stuff or Facebook and, or fake book and you get
offended.
Okay.
You hear a sermon, you get offended.
Even come on here and you get offended.
Once again, I'm trying to offend you the best that I can, speaking the truth in love, because
I want your heart to be whole.
Can I tell you something?
If you are an easily offended person hoping to get married, you are going to be offended
every day of your life inside relationship.
Intimate relationships will give you endless reasons to be offended, endless reasons.
If you already have an offended heart, you're going to be so offended and you're not going
to probably even make it to the altar because you're going to be so offended at the things
that happen as you're getting to know someone that you're probably just going to cut and
run.
Well, they didn't text me back when they should, or they didn't plan the date or, you know,
um, their, their communication is not what I want it to be.
I, I, I do all this, but they do that.
You know, it's going to be all kinds of reasons for you to find faults and to get upset and
to get offended.
A lot of hands went up saying, I admit, I confess, I want to be healed.
I'm easily offended.
Things get on my nerves.
I get annoyed really quickly.
You guys nowadays, you don't got to do anyone to offend.
You don't got to do anything to offend people.
People are offended that you're alive.
They're offended that you're breathing, you're breathing wrong.
And I, you know, I'll confess when I'm sitting on an airplane and I don't know who's sitting
next to me yet.
I'm just sitting there just waiting to be offended.
I should be sitting there waiting to, Oh, who am I going to meet?
Who am I going to be able to bless today?
And you know, and say hi to, or possibly, you know, have a, a God encounter with of
a divine appointment because we're sitting next to each other.
No, I'm sitting on that plane.
Cause I,
I board early, I'm in an early boarding class with my airline because, you know, I bought
enough flights from them to have it.
And so I am sitting there and I'm watching the aisle and people are coming down the aisle
and I'm like, oh, that person's too tall.
Don't let them sit here.
That person's a little too fat.
Don't let them sit here.
I'm just being honest.
All right.
Because those airplane seats are not big, you guys.
They've made them smaller and smaller over the years to accommodate more and more and
more people.
You hear someone with a little bit of a tick, they're kind of snorting or hacking and you're
like, oh, God, please don't let them sit next to me.
Jesus.
Ever since COVID, if anyone sneezes, everyone gives them the evil eye, like, how dare you
be alive?
How dare you be alive?
You're sneezing, you're coughing in public.
I mean, they could have just had a wild hair in their nose that caused them to sneeze.
But everyone looks at them like they're about to, you know, be patient zero that causes
the bubonic plague in the earth.
You guys, everything has worked together, not to our good, but to our offense.
Am I wrong?
That's what I tell you, the reason, the impetus for this talk on offense this week is because
David Dorman is on my last nerve.
I love that man, but I am so offended and annoyed by him this week.
And God's like, oh, Jackie, we need to do some hard work.
You guys, when you marry someone, you are literally saying I do at the altar.
What you're saying is I do promise to forgive this person that is going to annoy me more
than anyone has ever annoyed me in my entire life.
And the reason why is they can be a great person.
David's amazing.
He's a great man.
But when you live in proximity to someone, close proximity, they're going to do things
that you don't like.
They're going to do things that get on your nerves.
They're also not going to do things that you like and that you want.
And you're going to have to forgive them more than anyone that you've ever forgiven in your
life.
And I'm not talking about abuse here, y'all.
For those of you that have had hard marriages because they were abusive, no, I'm talking
about real marriages that are hard because marriage is hard.
It's a refining process.
It is.
So you guys, we have to begin to deal with offense.
For those of you that raised your hand and said, I get easily offended.
That's because your heart is bruised.
It's touchy in a lot of different places.
You have a lot of things that you've not released, that you've not forgiven, whether
it's yourself.
Do you know you could be offended by yourself?
Has anyone ever been offended by themselves?
You're like, ugh, Jackie, how could you do this again?
You're such an idiot.
No one ever in their life is annoyed by themselves, disgusted, offended by their own behavior.
You guys, we got to get to the root of that.
We got to forgive ourselves.
The Bible says, great are those that love my word and nothing will offend them.
In fact, I think it says great is the peace.
Great is the peace of those that love my word and nothing will offend them.
Nothing will offend them.
We all know that the word was robed in flesh and dwelt among us, Christ.
That scripture comes from Psalms, Psalm 119, really high up, like 165.
I used to have a pastor's wife that used to quote that verse all the time.
You try to talk to her about something that was bothering you and she'd be, great are
those that love thy law, greater the peace of those that love thy law and nothing will
offend them.
You guys, let's not spiritually bypass people by slapping scriptures on problems, okay?
We got to deal with stuff at the root.
Something's bothering us, if it's hurting us, then we got to talk about it.
We're not just going to bypass it with a scripture.
Bless her, but we're not going to bypass it with a scripture because you know what happens
when we do that is we just try to stick all the trauma behind false forgiveness.
Let's talk about toxic forgiveness for a second because we're talking about offense.
We need to also talk about forgiveness because the way that we're going to come out of offense
is by forgiving, right?
By confessing, by repenting, by forgiving the hard work tools, getting to the root of
things.
But there is such a thing as toxic forgiveness, you guys.
You know what that is?
That's forgiveness with no accountability.
That's just like shoving all the trauma into a closet and saying, oh, okay.
It doesn't exist anymore because I forgave them, no.
And what you've learned through the hard work
is that forgiveness has layers and it has phases.
We forgive because God has commanded us to do so.
It is a command from the Lord,
forgive and you will be forgiven.
Forgive your debtors so you can have your debts forgiven.
Right?
So it's important that we understand
that when we're forgiving someone,
that if we are going to be in continued relationship,
because write this down,
forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean reconciliation.
Okay?
When we forgive someone,
it doesn't mean that we're gonna necessarily
continue in relationship with them.
Now, if it's yourself that you're forgiving,
then yes, you're gonna continue
in relationship with yourself.
If it's God that you're forgiving,
then yes, you're gonna continue in relationship with God.
But if it's a person,
another person that you're forgiving,
you may or may not be continuing in relationship.
They may not even be alive on the earth.
But if they are alive on the earth,
and you're gonna continue in relationship with them
because you believe before God that you should,
okay, like say it's your spouse
and you're forgiving them for something,
there needs to be accountability to the offense.
Okay?
If you're the person that needs to take accountability
because you're just being touchy
and you're just being bruised
and you're turning a level two situation
into a level 10 situation because of your unhealed heart,
then you need to take accountability.
Hey, I overreacted.
I was judging you.
I was criticizing you in my heart.
Yes, I got upset at you,
but I got upset at you
because I was carrying the virus already.
I was carrying it.
Guys, I have seen so many people get hurt
in communities and churches,
like the story that I told you about my church,
and they're never able to come back into community again
because of my Captain D story,
because of the reason behind that.
They'll come into the church and they'll sit down,
you know, spiritual community, whatever,
civic group, you know, a group of people,
and they'll immediately start finding fault.
You know, within just a couple months,
they were so happy.
They were so excited to be there.
It was the greatest place in the world.
And then all of a sudden, it's like, ugh.
I don't like the way they teach.
I don't want to be preached.
I don't like that one chick that sings.
Her voice hurts my ears.
The drummer's offbeat.
What's the problem here?
The problem is,
is that they've come into a place with imperfect people.
Guess what?
There's no place that doesn't include that except heaven.
And now they're having a hard time
because of their unhealed hurt
from whatever has happened in the last community.
And they keep carrying that,
and they keep going to another place.
And there's a honeymoon phase where they love it there.
And then all of a sudden, you know,
they start to become offended by little things.
Am I wrong?
And just so you know,
that's going to happen in relationships too.
If you have unhealed relationship wounds and hurts,
even if it's just from platonic relationships, friendships,
it's going to be hard for you to trust a friend.
You're going to get into a new friendship.
And instead of really enjoying that
and being thankful for it and realizing that,
yeah, people aren't perfect,
you're going to start to pick that person apart,
find fault with them.
You're going to start to find reasons to not trust them.
Reasons to wall them off.
Remember, offense is a fence.
It's a fence.
It's a barrier that keeps you from being able
to truly connect and have intimacy with others.
And all of a sudden, you know,
you're not hanging out with them really anymore.
The relationship never got off the runway.
Same thing with dating relationships.
You're really excited about it at the beginning,
but pretty quickly you start getting suspicious.
You start pulling away.
You start getting critical and judgmental.
Start getting easily offended.
Guys, we have to deal with this.
Go back to the word scandalon.
It is a part of the trap that dangles bait.
Satan is dangling the temptation
for us to be offended all the time.
And you know what?
There are some things that you really,
truly should be offended at,
kind of righteously indignant at.
And those are the things that you take to prayer,
you take to intercession,
the things that are happening in the world.
We should be offended that children are being.
trafficked in the world, that should offend you, that should anger you.
We take that to the Lord, we begin to intercede for those children, we begin to intercede for
the rescuers of those children. I'm just going to tell you right now,
if you're a chronic watcher of the news, you should probably give that up.
I have watched how people that watch the news regularly actually get hardened hearts. I have
seen it happen in real time. Because first of all, y'all, if you haven't noticed, the news is all bad
news. It's all bad news. It's about who is screwing who over in the government, in real life,
in Hollywood. None of it's good news. It's all bad news. It's all gossip. It's all hearsay.
And then the stuff that is facts, because the news is barely facts anymore,
the stuff that is factual is pretty offensive. Lots of propaganda.
And the people that watch the news regularly, their hearts get hard. They're hearing all this
negativity on a regular basis and their hearts get hard. I know, I know, I know people that watch
the news habitually. As soon as they wake up in the morning, they read the news or they watch the
news, what's going on in the world. The problem is, is that there's a lot of other stuff going
on in the world besides what's being reported on that news station, and it's good stuff.
God is on the move. People's lives are being changed.
Right? People are being rescued supernaturally. All kinds of amazing things are happening.
You're not going to see anyone report on that.
And what's going to happen is, is that when you watch the news, you're going to think that all
there is out there is bad news. You know what's going to happen. The Bible says what's going to
happen at the end of the age, because of the rampant increase of sin, the love of many,
of sin, the love of many, the hearts of many will get cold and hard
and offended and offended. You guys in that same set of scriptures,
it says, and many will be offended and hate one another.
In fact, it says, and that's Matthew 24. It says many will fall away because of their offense.
You guys, who do you think that Jesus was talking about?
You can't fall away from something that you were never connected to. He's talking about believers.
And many will fall away from the faith because of their offense.
And you guys, and I've heard these people, and you could easily become one of them.
I could easily become one of them. Well, why doesn't God fix this? Why didn't God change this?
Why did God allow this to happen in the earth? Why this? Why that? They get offended because of
the sin that's running rampant in the earth. They start to get offended because evil seems to be
winning and prospering, but it's not. It's very difficult when good things happen, when bad things
happen to good people, and all these bad people that are doing bad things seem to be prospering.
It's so easy to be offended by that. I'm just going to be super transparent. You know, my dad
left the family when I was six months old. He left my poor 21-year-old mom with two toddlers. Well,
two, a baby and a toddler. I was six months old. My brother was a year old, year and a half old.
She was 21 years old. She was working two jobs. She was leaving us with people that she didn't
have support of family. She was trying her best to figure it out, and that drove her into the
arms of another man. Back in that day in the 70s, that's what you did. You just got married again.
If you're a woman, you needed to find another man. That man wasn't any good,
and that led to more abuse and all the things. My mom just really went through hell. She did.
Unfortunately, she kept choosing wrong even more, chose another man after that man that was
not good to her. I believe that's one of the reasons that my mom is not alive on the earth.
She passed away at 64 years old. I want to tell you something, you guys. I reconnected with my
biological dad. I'm still working on just layers of forgiveness towards him because of all the
neglect and all the abandonment and all the things that he did to my mom before he neglected
and abandoned all of us.
And he's been married.
He's on his fifth marriage right now.
And the other day I was sitting across from him.
I was down where he lives in Southern California and I took him to breakfast
and he came and, and he's a broken and beat up person and guess what?
He's a believer now.
He's given his life to Jesus and, you know, and, and I really
want to love him and forgive him.
You know, and that's a process.
And for those of you that are still in process with that, I
just want to encourage you.
It is a process, but he said something that I could have really allowed to offend me.
We were just sitting and talking and he was talking about his
struggles with his current wife.
This is wife number five.
And I lived with him for three months when I was 16 years old.
I needed a place to live.
I was homeless.
I didn't have anywhere to go.
I lived with him and his wife at the time.
I think that was wife number three.
And, you know, he's like, well, you know, Vicky, that's her name.
He's like, you know, she died of cancer.
And I was like, oh yeah, I'm so sorry to hear that.
He's like, yeah, he's like crazy.
But three of my five wives died young of cancer.
And that really started to piss me off because one of those women was my mother.
Because you guys know, it had been easy for me to, to say, I did think this thought,
but to hold onto this thought in my heart, this is a difference between
offensive thoughts coming and staying.
The offensive thought came like, you know, oh, you married five women, cheated
on them, abused them, three of them are now dead from cancer, but you're still
here, you big piece of crap.
I'm just being honest.
That's the thought that came.
But that's not the thought that I allowed to stay.
In fact, you guys, that is the very day that I talked about on a different
Supernatural Saturday, where he was broken and he was telling us how much he
was hurting and we circled back around after leaving, seeing him broken, walking
out to his car, like 150 years old when he's only 71 and we circled back around
and came back and laid hands on him and prayed for him and he began to weep and
cry.
We have a choice.
When offense comes, we can find out what heart and part of our heart it's pointing
to and we can invite Holy Spirit into that place to bring regeneration and
resurrection or we can stay offended, which will turn to bitterness.
It'll turn to resentment.
It'll turn to hatred.
It'll turn to death.
We can, we can do both.
We have a choice.
We have free will.
And you guys, a lot of times, have you ever, I've never met an offended person
who doesn't have a good reason for being offended.
Of course, there's plenty of good reasons for being offended.
James 3, 13 talks about the wisdom that comes from meekness, comes from that
yielded strength.
That's what meekness is, not weakness.
Meekness is us yielding our strength to God.
Okay.
But it talks about that.
It talks about how, you know, jealousy and envy and offense and bitterness, you
know, it seems reasonable to us.
Sometimes it might even seem wise.
You might not even think that it's offense that you're dealing with.
You might just think that it's discernment.
I am wise about the situation, but it's not true.
It's not true.
It's not suspense.
It's not a discernment.
It's a fence.
We have to release it to the Lord.
Anyone learn anything today?
You guys know that part in the book of John where Jesus says to the multitude,
you know, your forefathers ate manna, but you're going to eat my flesh and drink
my blood.
Remember that part?
And then everyone left because they were because you guys have to understand that
he purposely offended them.
He purposely was trying to offend them because, you know, cannibalism was like
the worst thing that you could do as a Jew.
Can't be a cannibal, can't eat dead people.
All right.
And so a lot of those people, they just left.
But there's something in that scripture that I think we don't really notice.
It says that when they got offended, they left, but they returned to their old
associations.
You guys, that's where I want to land the plane here.
The Bible is clearly showing us is when we allow ourselves to be offended, we
don't go any further.
We don't progress.
We go back to our old associations.
Offense is keeping us.
It's a block.
It's keeping us from moving forward.
It's keeping us from learning more.
It's keeping us from.
growing more, from understanding more, it's stunting us.
We don't want to go back to our old associations.
One thing I'm going to tell you because I've been on this journey for a while now is the
kingdom versus the church, the kingdom.
Kingdom stuff is going to offend you.
It definitely is.
If you want to go sit back and pat a cake for Jesus in some kind of dead religion, you
can, and there might not be anything there that offends or challenges you.
It depends on how much kingdom you've drank, because I will tell you that once you start
drinking the kingdom, you will never be satisfied going back and sitting in religion.
You will be super offended by religion all the time, because once again, offense can
be an upgrade.
It can really be an upgrade for you, but if you haven't partaken of the kingdom and you're
allowing kingdom ideas to offend you, to offend what?
To offend your poverty mentality, your orphan mentality, to offend your religious consciousness.
I mean, grace is scandalous, you guys.
Grace offends people.
When you tell people that Jesus died for them and as them, and the only thing that they're
ever going to do to participate in their salvation is believe, people get offended by that.
No, no, no, no.
They're fighting for their right to have to work this like a job.
They're fighting for it.
They're fighting to live under the law.
So I want you to think right now about what offends you, what easily offends you.
Where do you get offended most in life?
And I want you to put it in the chat.
I'm going to practice some James 5 16, and you guys come to, I think, I think we might
have prophetic night, all community prophetic night this Sunday, but we will, we'll, we
will dig more into this because God wants to free us from the blockage of offense, offense.
When it comes, it can upgrade you guys.
You want it to come.
You don't want to be offended because that is pointing to an unhealed part of your heart.
And if you do the hard work in that moment, you allow Holy Spirit into that instead of,
you know, grabbing ahold of that offense and letting it grow into resentment and bitterness,
you start to deal with it.
You start to deal with why that thing is bothering you, why that person is bothering you.
You get upgraded, you get an upgrade, you get promoted, but if you allow it to fester
and you nurture it and you coddle it because it feels good to be mad, then that's when
that can start turning into some crazy stuff.
Okay, let's see it.
See what offends you.
Come on, get them up.
Be honest.
I can't make you be honest, but if you want to be free, you got to be honest.
I'm just going to grab this one right here because it sounds so righteous and it sounds
so noble.
I get offended when people do wrong to others.
Yeah.
But you know what?
We can't control other people.
We can't control what people do.
And so instead of being offended by the wrong that people do, let's be the right thing in
the earth.
Let's be the people that do right by others in the earth.
The only way that we can counteract evil in the earth is when we do good, right?
We're not going to sit around and worry about what all the evil people are doing.
I just recently heard someone talking about that.
They were so mad because they're like, God, look at these people over here doing that.
You know, why are they getting away with that?
And I'm over here and, you know, you're not letting me get away with anything.
And he said to them, those aren't my kids.
Those children.
Oh, hear this.
Those children have a different father.
Oh, oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
The same that follow after the spirit of God, they will be called the sons of God.
Not everyone's God's kids, y'all.
I know we think, oh, all of humanity, God's children.
That's not true.
That's not biblical.
God's creation.
Yes.
God's children.
No, because God's children.
It's a byproduct of the reconciliation process of the finished work of the cross.
Jesus came to reconcile us back to the family, back to our heritage and our inheritance as
God's kids.
If you don't partake of that, you're not God's kid.
I really want to encourage you guys to look at what you've put in the chat and really
invite Holy Spirit into those places that have been offending you and ask yourself why.
Why does this offend me?
Why do the actions of other people offend me?
Why does it offend me when this specific thing happens, but I don't get offended by this
other stuff, but I do get offended by this, this one thing.
I heard a woman talk about how she sat down with a friend, with a group of friends, and
they were about to eat, like they met each other at a restaurant, they sat down and the
food came and the one friend sitting across from her like ate her food really quickly.
And this woman was like, oh my gosh, she's like, you must have been really hungry.
Like she didn't mean anything by it.
She wasn't saying, oh, you're a glutton or oh, you're a fatty patty.
She wasn't saying anything.
She was just saying, wow, you must have really been hungry.
It was just like a observation.
But she noticed at the end of the dinner that first of all, that woman got really quiet,
was talking less and at the end of the dinner that there was a little bit of food left on
that woman's plate that she hadn't eaten and she had it boxed and she took it home.
She found out later that that woman didn't finish her dinner because of that comment
that she made, which once again had no guile in it.
It had no guile in it.
You guys, I need you guys to understand that that woman who was finishing her food quickly,
he brought that virus to the table.
He brought that offense inside of herself.
Somewhere inside of herself, he has some kind of shame around food or he has some kind
of shame around eating or, you know, her weight or her body, something.
That woman triggered her by that observation that she must have been really hungry.
Do you see how easy it is?
Remember, we don't hear things the way they are being said.
We hear things the way that we are inside.
If you want to truly be unfiltered, you have to do your heart work.
A lot of people getting upset at themselves, some of you admitting that you get offended
at God, all kinds of things.
I want you to dig into these things.
I want you to invite Holy Spirit into these places.
In fact, let's do it as a community.
Father, great is the peace of those that love your word, which is Jesus, and nothing will
offend us.
Nothing will offend us.
We know that you sent your son not to unify, but to divide, to be a stumbling block, to
offend in some ways, but only for the purpose of upgrade, only for the purpose of promotion,
only for the purpose of us evolving into the better versions of ourselves, the kingdom
versions of ourselves.
And so, Lord, we thank you for the gift of offense when it comes to upgrade us, to promote
us.
Help us to take a deeper look.
Help us to be aware, spiritually aware when we're offended that we need to invite you
in and take a deeper look at what is the root of that offense.
Why does it bother us?
Where is it coming from?
And if it's righteous, help us to come to you in intercession, partnering with heaven
in prayer for transformation.
And if it's unrighteous, if it's born out of jealousy or resentment, envy, if it's born
out of old past traumas that are full of bitterness and unforgiveness, then let us, help us, grace
us to release those things to you that we might be healed, that our heart lens might
be cleaned, that we could see clearly and that we could love better.
Lord, we thank you, God, that we are going to be a people that are not offended, a people
that live in peace and bring peace wherever we go, a people after your heart and that
represent you well on the earth and a people that live abundantly and prosperously because
we're not stuck.
We're able to go forward because we trust you and we're living life according to your
realities and your perceptions and not our own.
In Jesus' name, let it be so.
Amen.
I love you guys.
Have an amazing day and we'll see you soon.