Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me. (Matthew 11:6 ESV)The Word of God does take account of the possibility of our being offended with Him. It does not say anywhere that that possibility should never arise and will never arise. The Lord has no where said that we shall never have any occasion for being offended with Him. He HAS indicated that there will be PLENTY of opportunity for so stumbling at Him, falling over Him, coming down because of Him – if you like: crashing because of Him. There will be plenty of occasion or opportunity for doing so. He has never said that it will never be so. It is as well for us to recognize that.The Lord sent no word of rebuke to poor John the Baptist in the prison when he was perilously near to being offended with the Lord because of his situation. The Lord was not hard on John because of his question. He might, had He been another, have said, “But John, did you not point Me out as the Lamb of God? Did you not proclaim Me as the One, the Messiah? Haven’t you preached about Me to multitudes? Have you not made the strongest declarations and affirmations as to what you believed about Me? And here you’re asking a fundamental question about Me. John, what’s gone wrong with you?” No, nothing like that. The Lord knows our frame, that we are dust. And the Lord, I’m saying, takes account of this ever present possibility, in our weakness, of being offended with Him. But He does attach to this matter a particular blessedness if we don’t crash over the Stumbling Block of His ways with us, “AND blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.”By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Blessedness of the Unoffended
_________________Mike
Great message! I have pondered over John's question delivered to Jesus after his arrest and blown away by Jesus's outstanding response to him. Maybe John was expecting a supernatural deliverance from Jesus and when he realised hElphinstone was not coming he could not believe. He might have thought, " am I not his forerunner" and so why is he not here.When you pay attention to some Christians especially when they are goingoing through tough times, you could see clearly that many are offfened. Some speak as if God has cheated them or deal unfairly with them. But we know that all things worketh for our good. I believe at the time a John had fulfilled his destiny and the will of the father was not to get him out from prison. Jesus later acknowledged that John was the greatest among all men born of women. God is good and no matter what the situation may be, we must understand that He is faithful to perform every promise of His. As human as we are, we tend to think that God must always dance to our tune and when it doesn't happen we get upset and the upset graduates into offenses. But this wonderful scripure tells us that should all our expectations fail, we must look up and still be able to thank God.
_________________Bernard Ofosu
