Bless Is Anyone Who Takes No Offense at Me (and others)

Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. (Luke 7:23)

It is sometimes very difficult not to be offended in Jesus Christ. The offenses may be circumstantial. I find myself in a prison-house—a narrow sphere, a sick chamber, an unpopular position—when I had hoped for wide opportunities. Yes, but He knows what is best for me. My environment is of His determining. He means it to intensify my faith, to draw me into nearer communion with Himself, to ripen my power. In the dungeon my soul should prosper.

The offense may be mental. I am haunted by perplexities, questions, which I cannot solve. I had hoped that, when I gave myself to Him, my sky would always be clear; but often it is overspread by mist and cloud. Yet let me believe that, if difficulties remain, it is that I may learn to trust Him all the more implicitly—to trust and not be afraid. Yes, and by my intellectual conflicts, I am trained to be a tutor to other storm-driven men.

The offense may be spiritual. I had fancied that within His fold I should never feel the biting winds of temptation; but it is best as it is. His grace is magnified. My own character is matured. His Heaven is sweeter at the close of the day. There I shall look back on the turnings and trials of the way, and shall sing the praises of my Guide. So, let come what will come, His will is welcome; and I shall refuse to be offended in my loving Lord.
—Alexander Smellie

Blessed is he whose faith is not offended, 

When all around his way

The power of God is working out deliverance 

For others day by day;

Though in some prison drear his own soul languish, 

Till life itself be spent,

Yet still can trust his Father’s love and purpose, 

And rest therein content.

Blessed is he, who through long years of suffering, 

Cut off from active toil,

Still shares by prayer and praise the work of others, 

And thus “divides the spoil.” 

Blessed are thou, O child of God, who sufferest,

And canst not understand

The reason for thy pain, yet gladly leavest 

Thy life in His blest Hand.

Yea, blessed art thou whose faith is “not offended”

By trials unexplained,

By mysteries unsolved, past understanding, 

Until the goal is gained.

~L. B. Cowman~

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Mercy!  Forgiveness!  Acceptance!  Pardon!  Welcome!

In Hebrews 12:22-24, we are given a powerful word on how the blood of Jesus speaks such better things than the blood of Abel.  This is a great insight, so bear with me,

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

You can read the story of Abel and his brother, Cain, in Genesis 4.  What we learn is that Cain became jealous of Abel, and as a result, Cain rose up against Abel in the field and killed him.

God said, "Cain, the blood of your brother, Abel, cries out to Me from the ground."  What did the blood of Abel say?  "Vengeance!  Judgment!"

The blood of Jesus cries better things.  The blood that soaked the cross and made it red, the blood that soaked the ground below the cross at that place called Calvary, the blood that today is in the heavenly Holy of Holies, that blood cries out day and night into the ears of God.

The blood of Jesus today does not cry out, "Vengeance!  Judgment!"  Instead, it cries out, "Mercy!  Forgiveness!  Acceptance!  Pardon!  Welcome!"

The question is:  How will you respond? Hebrews 12:25 issues a stern warning,

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks.  For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven.

If you have yet to accept Jesus as your Savior, do so today.

~Bayless Conley~

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For the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified - John 7:39

Calvary must precede the Ascension, and both must come before Pentecost. The glorified Lord was the text on which the Spirit was to discourse, and the text must be complete before the sermon can commence. Moreover, it was only when our Lord had ascended to the right hand of the Father, that He could receive or transmit the Divine Comforter. It was needful for Him to be by the right hand of God exalted, before He could ask for and receive, and shed forth the Holy Spirit of promise. The one Paraclete must finish His work, and be withdrawn, ere the other could come to take up and finish His work on earth. The Son must sit down on the throne, or the Spirit could not descend to sit on each of the disciples.

But there is a deep inner lesson for us all in these words. We sometimes wonder why we have not received the Spirit, and why our lives are not channels through which He pours in mighty rivers to make desert hearts and lives blossom and sing. How gladly would we part with all beside, if we might be conscious that not tiny streamlets, not one river of holy influence merely, but that rivers were issuing from us as the waters from the temple threshold!

Is not the reason to be sought in our neglect to glorify Christ? We have never yet abandoned ourselves to Him, content to live the branch-life, with no other aim than to realize the one purpose of His most blessed life, the glorifying of the Father. We have never seriously made it our life-purpose to glorify the Lord Jesus. There has been no triumphal entry into our hearts, no enthronization, no challenge to the gates of our soul that they should lift themselves up to admit the King of Glory.

~F. B. Meyer~