The Trap Of Offense In Ministry

0:00 Now, let's not forget Jesus Christ died for the Pharisees as well. Right, so he didn't hold bitterness in his heart and withhold good, because that's ultimately what happens. When you hold bitterness or offense in your heart. It becomes a reader bitterness. You end up with holding good from the people that you should do good to. We end up doing the very thing Jesus said not to do when we're offended and we have a root of bitterness. You know how it says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. When we get bitterness and offense in our hearts, we oftentimes do the opposite. I Am Yours, I'm yours, I'm yours, and me Lord, I'm yours, I'm yours. I'm welcome to the Gospel centered pro life podcast, a podcast designed to equip, encourage and challenge you in pro life ministry, and always with a focus on the Gospel.

0:51 Stay tuned. I felt your past touch your welcome back to the Gospel centered pro life podcast. Appreciate you guys joining us as always, and I am here Daniel Parks, with Vicky Cassi Org doing I'm sure everybody's doing great because they get to hear from us again. Lucky them. There is no such thing as luck. That's right. Just what would be the alternative? Then they are so blessed, blessed, they're blessed, they're blessed. Yes, Amen. Well, this topic hopefully will be a blessing. Hopefully by the end of this episode, you guys won't be offended and we talk about because we're gonna be talking about offense. We're gonna be talking about how in ministry there is this trap of offense. Or actually had a conversation yesterday with one of the guys in the office that said I was saying it wrong. I was saying offense. He saying that's what you do when you're playing football.

2:01 Right, this is offense. So I'm trying not to be offended or offended by that and say it right. Um, I have a little fun with that, but this is a very, very serious subject, which it is. It is. This is a good portion of this is from the book the Bait of Satan and yes, excellent book, and he makes the point. The author John Vivie, or it could be bevier. You don't know. Okay, John vivie Um. He makes the point that the UM, the danger of the trap of offense is that it can become a route of bitterness and it just destroys not only ministries, which is where we're going to focus, but really human relationships, all human relationships and Um and I think that is very true. As I was reading that book, I definitely had quite a few ouch moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think personally, when you get born again and give your life to Jesus, you should get two things. You should get a Bible and you need to read that every day. You know, man don't live on bread alone, but everywhere that comes from southing God give us this day or daily bread. You need your daily bread and you should get a copy of the bit of saying wow, it's that. Critically, I'm not saying it's equal to the Bible by the stretch of the imagination, but the trap of offense and what I've seen offense do in my own life and the lives of others and what offense has

3:34 done to destroy ministries, to Split Churches, is so detrimental to the body of Christ it's so deeply routed in our hearts. We can so justify it and it's but it's so destructive that it needs to be dealt with. And you actually had all of my my whole family went through that book. We bought a copy for each of our kids. There's actually a version of and I'm not selling books here, I'm just saying this book is power and the truths that are in that book are so powerful everybody needs to take advantage of it. There's one Um version of that book. I think you can find it on Youtube, not on Youtube, on Amazon, and it's like a thirty day devotional version. So it as you read like a portion of the chapter and then you go into the back and answer questions based on that portion that you read. We actually had each of our kids read that portion, answer the questions and then we all talked about it as a family, because offense can be so rooted in in our identity. US holding offense against people.

4:30 People do that against their parents, they do that that against their teachers, they do that against their children, their GRANDPA, you know, all all of the relationships that we have can have some point of offense that's connected to it and it can hold us back. It can one of the things that surprised me reading the book was how often Jesus talks about it. Yeah, you know. The first we have an article, as we often do, that that Um goes along with this podcast, and the the right at the top of that article is uh luke seventeen one where Jesus said it is impossible that no offense should come and and there are many other the in the book he cites many, many Biblical, uh you know, scripture that that talks about the danger of offense. Yeah, if you want to know three things that will hold you back from doing what God has called you to it will be offense, bitterness and disillusionment. Offense, bitterness and disillusionment will hold you back from doing and being what God has called you to do. And they're so related. They're so related. I think offense probably comes first and then comes the disillusionment. And what was the third one? Bitterness, and the rude of bitterness that comes from offense can be so, so painful.

5:56 So, yeah, this reality that and this is why we're talking about this, especially in the sidewalk ministry, but any area of ministry that you're involved in, there can be the potential for offense. You could be offended with the people you're ministering to. You can be offended with the people you're ministering with, you can be offended at the churches that are not coming out and ministering or the ones that are, or whatever. There's all kinds of room for offense. That's why Jesus says here that it's impossible that no offense should come. Like, if you're gonna be a Christian, if you're gonna be a human being in this world, in this fallen world full of fallen people, you're going to have offenses. There's gonna be things that offend you, things that happen in a way that you didn't want them to happen, and that's something you're gonna deal with. So we need to look at what the word of God says. How do we deal with offenses biblically so that they don't become a root of bitterness that will defile us? And the Bible says that root of bitterness can defile many people around us can get defiled and then we become disillusioned ultimately with the body of Christ and with God. I mean I've seen offense go from being offended to a root of bitterness to being completely disillusioned with God. Where people, I mean we talk with pro boards on the sidewalk all the time who were raised in church, and that's the flow of things. They got offended by somebody, somebody said something to them or somebody didn't do something that they thought they should do. Um, they got that root of bitterness. That root of bitterness grew up and just defiled them and defiled many and then they're just completely disillusioned with the church. They don't want to have anything to do with God. It really clouds reality because the

7:28 reality is not what they've painted. When you become bitter, your reality is now skewed and and Um and and incorrect, so often incorrect. I love what John Beavier said. He said it is not a question of opportunity to be offended, based on that luke seventeen passage. Um, you will be offended. In other words, there will be opportunity to be offended. But he said, but the question is what your response will be. So it's gonna come. How will we respond? Can we responded in a biblical manner? And it is really where we hope that this podcast will, will guide and encourage. So let's then just real quick. I think we've already done it, but let's concisely define what we're talking about. What is offense?

8:13 Yeah, yeah, well, I'll take stab at it Um. Offense is when something feels like an attack on either your person, your speech, your character, and you take it personally. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's something that someone does or someone fails to do that, like you said, it seems like an attack and you as a person and it's a it's an offense. All right, it feels like an offensive jab against you. Now one thing. I think we'll get into this as we get into the meat of this podcast. We have to understand. This is something that really helped me, and I shared this before we started recording. It really helped me to get over offense and to let things go. At the end of the day, it's what we need to we need to let stuff go.

9:03 It's realizing and understanding I'm not that important. People aren't thinking of ways they can slide me. They aren't. They aren't thinking of how they can leave me out of stuff so that it will hurt me. People aren't thinking of ways and things that they can say to offend me and to tear me down. A lot of times it's negligence. A lot of times it can be US thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to, and so people might say something to us that hits us the wrong way or whatever it might be. Um, it's not personal. That's that's where we get into this trap of offense, is we take it personal, and so if we can keep from taking it personal, then I think we could keep ourselves from the trap of offense, and we can. We can deal with it. You know, if we need to address it on a personal level, we we do, but right. And there are two there are two kinds of offense the author brings out. One is purposeful, I mean there really is an attack that shouldn't have happened and you are actually justified in at least feeling you've been attacked, Um, and then there's the ones that are along the lines of what you were talking about. They really had nothing to do really with you.

10:16 It was just maybe thoughtlessness on their part, but they really weren't focused on you at all. They were focused on a, you know, whatever their agenda was, and you just sort of gotten the way. Let me give you just a short little example of how this might play out, and I've seen it play out on the sidewalk. This is just for sidewalk ministry. You're there on the sidewalk, you're calling out to someone across the parking lot. Your team member WHO's WHO's in ministry with you, is on the other side of the sidewalk, or maybe down fifty ft or so, and they start calling out over top of you. Immediately you're like, okay, why are they they don't think what I'm saying is valuable. You know, you go with this is where we get called in this trap of offense.

11:00 Our minds gravitate towards the worst possible scenario. They don't like what I'm saying. That's what they're calling out, assigning motives to them that you can't really know until you've discussed it with them. Yeah, when you drill into it though, and this is where, in that scenario, how I would deal with if someone's calling out over me and I had offense, I would walk over there and say, Hey, I noticed I was calling out earlier and you started calling over top of me. If there is there some reason why, quite likely they didn't realize that you were calling out. Rather than attributing the worst possible motive. Maybe they just didn't see that you were calling out and in their zeal they started calling out. That's just a simple example. It could get a lot more complex than that. Yeah, yeah, but you know, that's an example I thought, just as it pertains to this ministry, that I would bring up. It's a good example because it also shows that the it could have turned into, and often does turn into, just you harbor that as bitter resentment inside of you. You don't directly address it immediately. You assume that Wurst and all of a sudden you're giving your teammates the silent treatment or you're angry with them, and then you start to snap at each other and whatever, and it could blow up into destroying the cohesiveness of a sidewalk and it's such a little thing that never needed to become big. The Bible says it's the little foxes that spoil the vine. I just read that and I never knew what that meant, but that's exactly that's perfect. That's a perfect verse for that. It's often the little things that you never expect that that end up ripping apart an entire yeah, yeah,

12:37 and you think about it in that scenario. If that happens multiple times, someone calls out over you multiple times, that kind of can reinforce that whole idea that you have in your mind. That's why one of the ways to guard against offense is what Jesus gives us a Matthew Chapter Eighteen. If you have an offense with your brother, if you find fault with your brother, go and speak between you and them. Here's one of the things that we do to spiritualize our offense, and I've seen this. Probably done this. I can't remember an instance where I did, but I've seen it with others. It's easier to see things in other people. Come I put the personal example. If you need yeah, Um, but you spiritualize your offense by saying I want you to pray about this. You know it's rather than going to the person that you have the offense with and dealing with it between you and them so they can be dealt with like it's supposed to be, you go to somebody else. I want you to be praying about this. So and so keeps calling out over me, or so and so keeps, you know whatever, they keep doing whatever thing that's offended you. So I want you to be praying back. What are you doing in that? You're sharing your offense with other people. It's failed gossip. Spiritually, I think about how that grieves the heart of God when you're using prayer, this powerful tool that he's given us, in order to to really perpetuate your offense when you should be dealing with it between the person that you're offended by. What you'll find is because the devil can do a really good job of being a case against people in your mind, in their absence. Right, what you'll find is it's probably there's probably a lot less to it than you thought there was.

14:07 It's not, again, that they thought that you weren't good at what you're doing and you weren't saying the right things. Is You're calling out, but they didn't realize that you were calling out. Or maybe it is that they don't think that the things that you're saying are are valuable and you should be called out over. That still needs to be talked about right. That needs to be addressed between you and them. Relationships are hard, but as a believer in Jesus, we have to do the hard work of building relationships with each other. Why? Because the heart of God is unity in the body. So they're difficult conversations that need to be had sometimes, but oftentimes you'll find that the things that offends you are actually just lies from the enemy and from the flesh, that if you just bring it out in the open, like they say, sunlight is the best disinfect and if you bring it out in the open, out into the light, you'll find that there's really no substance to a lot of these things. Right. Yeah, I I agree with that. Agree with that totally. Um, so it's a trap, you know. Offense is a trap that that this Satan sets for all of us and we can either fall into that trap nurture that offense in our hearts at the point that it becomes deadly and dangerous. And one of the things uh John Bevere pointed out that I thought was really interesting was what, what is the most likely source of offense, and it's usually those we love the most, those were the ones we expect the highest from, are the ones that most easily offend us. So those would be members of our family.

15:37 They certainly could be members of our team, a boss that's supposed to be looking out for you and you find out he really wasn't Um. Yeah, so a little quote. Not Tapped this into my phone a couple of months ago, just I was thinking these things through, because this is something you're always going to deal with in ministry, is trying to disciple people and encourage people not to be offended with each other and also not to deal with offense in your own heart. And essentially, here's the quote. The people closed to see you have the ability to hurt you the most with the least amount of effort. Yeah, and that's true. That's the reality. Well, they know you, they know you the best. So they know if, if the offense is purposeful, they know what it takes to they know the buttons. And if it's not, Um uh, you know something that they are intentionally doing. It hurts because you just expect them. You they should, they should be more careful. So so the the big danger, the biggest danger of dwelling an offense is that it moves into the next stage, which is that root of bitterness. And when you're when you're hurt, uh, what takes over is your own pride has been wounded and it quickly becomes the source of a hardened heart. And that hard it in heart then is not willing to repent from that hardness of their own heart. They're not

17:10 willing to forgive. First of all. They're not willing to repent of the need to forgive, and therefore they will not be healed from the offense. And I thought that was interesting. To the offender, whether it was purposeful or not, is really not the one that is in the deeper sin, in a sense, because it's the one who has been offended who is now refusing forgiveness, when we have all been forgiven of so much, that is now causing it to turn into so much more than what it should have turned into. Yeah, I mean, Jesus did say that if you don't forgive, then you will not be forgiven. We need to take that very seriously.

17:53 There's something heavy and something really important about this forgiveness. The UM I'm gonna read the Scripture. This is in Hebrews, Chapter Twelve and uh be verse fifteen, where it talks about a root of bitterness. This is a new King James version. It says, looking carefully lest anyone falls short of the grace of God less any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. So this offense that can lead to a root of bitterness doesn't just hurt you, but it can hurt people around you. And this happens when you're offended by someone, then you do that spiritualized gossip and you kind of build your own team against that person and many become defiled.

18:40 Some of the worst offense, if you think about it, that we can deal with, is offense that we take on behalf of other people. You know, if somebody hurts your husband or your kid, that's that's the next level, as opposed to them hurting you. Right if they hurt you a lot of times, you know, you can deal with it, you can move on, but if they hurt someone else and you take off fense for that person, it's hard for you to let that go. So we have to guard our hearts against, if we get offended, sharing that offense with others, that that route of bitterness with other people, because even though we might end up releasing it and getting, you know, being giving forgiveness to the person that offended us, the people that we got around us, there's many that were defiled. They have a hard time getting over that.

19:22 Exactly you've defiled others. So there's another verse that Um was in the book, Matthew, actually three verses. That's the same subject, the same Um. Thing that you're trying to point out is that offense leads to terrible consequences and another scripture that points that out. As Matthew Ten to thirteen. Do you have that there? Can You? Can you read that? Yeah, it says, and then many will be offended and we'll betray one another and we'll hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. So look at that progression. To me this was just shows the seriousness of offense. It leads to betrayal, hatred, false profits, deception, lawlessness, love growing cold.

20:17 All of that from an offense. And so it's not from the offense, it's from the one who has been offended. It wasn't the offense that set off this terrible series of sin, it was the one who was offended who didn't deal with it appropriately. So I think that shows how incredibly important it is to deal with offense. And something else that you had said is is, you know, you Uh spiritualized prayer, you can also spiritualized scripture. And what I mean is, well, it wasn't my idea, actually it was John Fears. Is Is that you can take scripture to support your position of why you're offended. There's all there probably is. If it's a legitimate offense, you will be able to find scripture to support it. But without the love of God. To balance that, that scripture is being used as a weapon and to further your own offense, your own sense of being offended.

21:22 Yeah, I will say this that you have to as a believer in Jesus, because we're primarily talking about Co believers in Jesus right, fellow believers in Jesus, and you're being offended by people on your team, your sidewalk team or whatever ministry you're involved in. Um, you have to believe the best about the people that you're in ministry with, unless you have a large body of evidence to the contrary. When Paul Talks about in First Corinthians, chapter thirteen, he talks about love and what love looks like, and one of the things he says is that love believe us all things that could be translated into love, believes the best. We have to believe the best about our fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord unless we're given a compelling reason to believe otherwise, and then, if we have a compelling reason to believe otherwise, we have to confront it. We have listen for for the love of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. If there's an egregious sin and if they're going around just offending everyone, right, because there are people like that that just there there, brash, they're inconsiderate. There may be new believers in Jesus and their relationship skills aren't the best. There needs to be a confrontation rather than just that person offending this person that person and then just building this team of people against them. You've got to address it between you and them, for their sake, but also for your sake, um, because again, the devil would do a great job of building a case against people

22:55 in their absence. In your mind, and if you don't decide to believe the best about your brothers and sisters in the Lord, you're going to have this perfect case against this person without a really compelling evidence against him. It's just stuff in your mind they did this or did that, but it was really not a compelling case that that person is in sin or whatever. I honestly think that is one of the most important things that you have taught me, Daniel, because I know you've told you've said that to me before many times. Um to always believe the best in others, and I do think my natural tendency might not be and so because of that, I think I do tend to Um take offense more often than I should, and I do think that that's one of the antidotes to that is just assume the best in in that person until you find out otherwise. Now that in Sidewalk Ministry, I will tell you can can be a too hitch sword, because I tend to assume the best of the MOMS I'm counseling and often times they don't deserve that. Oftentimes they truly are lying or deceiving or even outright using me or our ministry for a purpose that is wrong. Well, that's one of the reasons why I qualified it. Yeah, and I said you have to for your brothers and sisters in the Lord. You have to believe the best.

24:22 Remember, these are people that are enduelled by the same Holy Spirit that you're endueled by. Right, they are believers, they are brothers and sisters in the Lord. You have to believe the best about them. Let me just say this. You don't have an option. You do not have an option as a believer in Jesus, you do not have the option to believe the worst about your fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord. If you're if you have that as a default, where you always believe the worst about people, that's a problem in your heart. You need to deal with it. It's probably because there's some things in your heart that have not been dealt with. Now, as it pertains to the to the men and women that we minister at the abortion say or who are not born again, we have to look at the scenario. The reality is they're they're going to take the life of their child. We have to look at our experiences that they consistently lie to us. that it doesn't mean that our position immediately is to believe the worst about them, but we've got to kind of come with neutral ground as far as that's concerned. Right, we gotta we gotta hear what they're saying through that filter that there are people at a place about to take the life of their baby and they could be lying to us Um and so there is a different approach that we have now, of course, the things that they're saying.

25:33 Again, the people that are closest to us have the the ability to offend us the most with the least amount of effort. Those people at the abortion center, we don't know them, so they're not close to us. So even if they're lying to us or whatever, it doesn't really offend us. Is that we're not easily offended by them. Normally, were easily offended by the people are ministering with true and and the people that uh that we minister too. Oftentimes I don't take offense, even though I know I'm being lied to, because of my expectations. My expectations are different for them. I expect to be lied to. I do expect their women in crisis or people in crisis, and I know that people in crisis often act in ways that are are not great. So I'm more charitable, I think, towards them than I am exactly what you said towards loved ones. Are People that I expect more from. So we have a wonderful model for dealing with offense, right. I mean there's lots, there's lots of biblical models, but, as in so many times, the best model, and every time the best model, is Jesus and how dealt with offense, because he certainly had to face a lot of people offending in his ministry. Yeah, absolutely.

26:47 I mean we're talking about the very son of God, the one who made all things, the one for whom all things were made, the Lord of Glory, the King of Majesty. If anyone could rightly take offense and be offended, it could be Jesus. Right. Oftentimes we're offended because we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Jesus couldn't think more highly of himself than you ought to, because he's the highest one of all right. And yet you see in Jesus Ministry now, he certainly confronts the Pharisees. They say offensive things about him and to him, but notice how he doesn't just talk about them behind their backs, but he confronts them to their faces. And when it happens it's immediate. Yeah, he deals with it.

27:30 He doesn't foster like hatred in his heart or anything. He deals with it immediately. Now, let's not forget Jesus Christ died for the Pharisees as well. Right, so he didn't hold bitterness in his heart and withhold good, because that's ultimately what happens when you hold bitterness or offense in your heart. It becomes a reader bitterness. You end up with holding good from the people that you should do good to. We end up doing the very thing Jesus said not to do when we're offended and we have a root of bitterness. You know how it says that we should do unto others as we would have them to do unto us. When we get bitterness and offense in our hearts, we oftentimes do the opposite. Right, we do we try to get back at them, and often underhanded waste, often underhanded waste. They left us out of a conversation or whatever. I'M gonna leave them out of the passive aggressive, but we won't call it. Yeah, they called out over top of me at the Sidewalker, they handed out literature in front of me at the driveway, and so I'm gonna Start doing it in front of them.

28:25 Um, you know, whatever it might be, it's the opposite of what Jesus called us to do, and it's the opposite of what Jesus did. He had all kinds of reasons and justifications to be offended, but ultimately, what does he do? He goes to a cross and he dies for those very people. Think about this. Okay, John Chapter Thirteen, when Jesus watches his washes his disciples feet. WHO's in that room? Judas, the very one that betrayed him, the very one. If, if Jesus wanted to be wanted to be offended and hold a root of bitterness against anyone and be perfectly justified in doing so in the eyes of the world, it would be Judas, the one who betrayed him. Jesus knew he was going to betray him. Jesus knew all the things that Judas was gonna do that will set in his heart to do right. There was already in motion that he was gonna be betrayed by Jesus. What does Jesus do? Washes the guy's feet. Right. And so if we're gonna come with the heart of Jesus and we're gonna live after the example of Jesus, we've got to be willing to wash the feet of people that offend us. We've got to be willing to do what Jesus did, and he says, even from the cross, what what's what's his word, father, a whole offense against them.

29:34 So strike them all down dead. Surprisingly now he could have it. He would have been. What does he say from the Cross, father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. What does he decide to do? To believe the best about them? They're they're deceived, they don't know what they're doing. And so he what does he do? He puts it in the hands of God, and I think that will kind of wrap this thing up for us, as you and this are cool Um, talk about some things that we can do instead of having offense, and the first thing is to trust God to right the wrong. So important, absolutely. It just takes so much stress off of you. God sees it all, God knows it all, everything will be made right. We Are we are promised that. Yeah, yeah, leave it in the Lord's hands. Oftentimes we're offended when we get lift out of stuff or whatever, because we think that we deserve a certain position. Yeah, let God put you in that position.

30:33 Don't try to put yourself in that position. By holding offense and talking about people behind their backs, or leave it in the hands of the Lord. The Lord will lift you up. The Bible says that God will take the low places and lift them up in the high places and bring them low. Let God deal with that stuff and prayer, unlike the prayer you described where you the gossip prayer, prayer to God in the midst of your offense is perfectly appropriate to say help me, help me through this, help me to know what to do and and rely on him absolutely Um. So, continuing on this list, love others and forgive. Listen, forgiveness is not just a feeling. Okay, forgiveness is something you do cognitively. I'm going to decide, even though I'm offended at this person, I'm going to forgive them now. That forgiveness oftentimes is started. The beginning of that forgiveness is confronting the thing that offended you and dealing with it. Right, Um, but you've got to decide to forgive. You don't have an option. That is that is a non negotiable. You have no option. God has given you no option if you're going to remain a Christian. God has given you no option to hold unforgiveness against people. That's it. That's right. And a whole different podcast is the difference between Um, the need for forgiveness, and the need to reconcile. You don't have to be reconciled necessarily in terms of Um, like an ongoing relationship. If if the offense is truly damaging,

32:05 toxic, but you are required to forget, you have to forgive them in your heart. You have to Um, and then you can learn things from these trials that come. No doubt about it, God can use the offense, the root of bitterness, His grace, if you get over and release it to him. And forgiveness God can use is the help you grow. Right, you think about it, if anyone can be offended, it could be God offended at us because of our sin. But what does he do? He chooses to forgive. And so you can learn to be more like Jesus as you choose to forgive and and Jesus is the perfect example of learning obedience in a trial. I mean he went to the cross. He was completely obedient to the father's will in that and we know that it's not necessarily what he wanted to do. It said he sweated drops a blood, you know, in the garden the night before. So it was it was not a pleasant task in front of him, but he completely obeyed God.

33:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and as an example to all of us, Jesus was a man full of forgiveness and ready to release any offense or bitterness. He didn't have a root of bitterness and uh, the the example of Jesus is the pinnacle of how we should live and how we should operate in ministry. There's a few other things on this list. I would encourage you guys to get a hold of this article. It'll be on the sidewalks for life website and equipping articles also. Can I encourage you guys again, I'm not trying to sell books or anything like that. You don't make any money off no commission of I don't even know John bravere although I'd love to meet the guy. Um, that book debate of Satan is so important. I would encourage all of you guys, with all of your teams, if you can do it, to go through that book with your teams, because not only does it talk about how to deal with offense that you might have in your heart currently, but it also talks about how to guard against it.

33:55 It's not a super long book. Um. You know, there may be some things in there that offend you. He deals with stuff really forthrightly and you might get offended by some of the things that he says in the ways that he says them. But you need it. We need to we need to deal with the things that are in our hearts so that we can help others deal with things in their hearts. Right, can't give what you don't have. So if we're bound ourselves in bitterness and unforgiveness, how are we going to help these MOMS that a lot of times are bound in bitterness and unforgiveness? And how are we gonna help encourage each other? Right? So I encourage you, guys. Um, I appreciate you listen to this episode. Hopefully it was a blessing to you and I want to encourage you guys to share this episode with your team's share this episode with others who would be blessed by it. I think this is a vital subject and I think the devil will use offense to tear apart ministries. I've seen him do it.

34:45 I've seen him tear apart whole churches because of offense, and so, inasmuch as it depends on us, let's let's forgive. Let us not walk in offense and bitterness and disillusionment and UH, please share this episode with others, as I said, and please leave us a review. We won't be offended if you don't, but we'd be blessed if you will reach out to me, Daniel a love life dot Org, if you have suggestions for future episodes or maybe comments about this particular episode. You reach out to Vicky, Vicky with a Y I, Love Life Dot Org. We'd love to hear from you, but until next time, God bless God, bless you all. Give me our love for love, give me our love for gratitude. I know it will cost me my life. Nothing's too precious. And some met you