How can we live peacefully with people when there is so much offense in the world.  

We live in a society today that is all the time trying to tell us how offended we should be with everything and everyone.  The powers that be in the world are teaching people to seek out offense in everything people say and people do.  Everything is cause for offense nowadays.  Our politics and the media are sowing more and more discord and strife amongst.  

Rom 12:18  If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 

Paul isnt saying have peace with people if they are peaceful towards you and give them a good whooping if they are not peaceful towards you.  

It’s true you cannot make people be peaceful towards you but you can have peace born in you towards all people.  

In Matthew 24 Jesus talked about offense abounding and people being full of hatred toward one another and the love of many waxing cold. 

In times of tribulation offense can abound and people can be filled with more hatred toward one another than love. 

We can very easily feel hostility towards those we deem to be in the way of what we say is good and true and right and needed for life to manifest.  The soul can feel very agitated and excited with a lust for life when we deem someone or a group of people to be working against what we say is needed to see life manifest and have our lives preserved. 

We can see it happening in our current political climate.  No matter what side it is both sides are becoming increasingly hostile towards one another because they deem the other side to be against all that is good and true and righteous.  Both sides view the other side as being in the way of what is needed for life to manifest.  They each view the other side as preventing them from having the life and the peace they long for.  

How can we live peacefully with people where offense is abounding and there is more hatred amongst people for one another than love.  

How can we remain in peace and not be drawn into offense and hostility by those who are full of hatred and hostility towards us.  In a world where people are living by the knowledge of good and evil, and people say their way of bringing forth life is good and anyone who disagrees with their way is evil.  

How can we avoid being filled with bitterness and anger and despair.  How can we avoid being drawn into a life of self justification by those who are dwelling in offense and filled with anger and hatred.  

You know offense isn’t just content to dwell in one person it wants to reproduce itself in as many people as possible so as to take as many people as possible captive to a life of self justification.  Offense is all the time trying to lead us to the place where we try to find justice and life from the world and the way people behave towards us so our lives with people are full of strife.  

In my own life I thought if I could get people to act the right way and do the right things and react to me the right way then I could have peace.

I want to look at Jesus and what was in his heart that guarded him from offense.  

How is it that Jesus wasnt offended?  

I mean he comes to love on us and to serve us with his life and to save us from sin and death and the suffering they were bringing to us.  His heart was only filled with tenderness and lovingkindness towards us to be good to us and the people flogged him to death; stripped him naked; put a crown of thorns on his head; nailed him to a tree and spit on him and mocked him.  

You’d think Jesus would be the most offended guy that ever lived.  But, somehow in the midst of all that rejection and suffering his heart was kept from offense.  He was never offended with the people.  Somehow in the midst of the cross he wasnt filled with anger and bitterness towards the people who were crucifying him.  He wasnt drawn into a life of self justification.  Somehow in the midst of that place he prayed for the people.  He blessed them even as they were cursing him.  If your anything like me I wanted to know how did Jesus do that?

Disclaimer:  

This isnt about how we going to see what Jesus did and now we are going to mimic it.  This isnt about we are going to look at what Jesus did and now use it as a metric to judge ourselves as righteous or not.  But, if we can see the faith that was in Jesus’ heart that faith can begin to give shape to our hearts and also keep our hearts from offense the same way it did with Jesus.

So why wasnt Jesus offended with the people who were crucifying and mocking him?  

Jesus didnt confuse the people with what they were doing to him.  He differentiated between the people and the fruit of death that was coming out of them.  He didnt impute their transgressions to them.  Jesus didnt blame the people for the hurt and injustice he experienced at the cross.  He didnt scapegoat them for the pain and the suffering he experienced at their hands and he didn’t scapegoat them for the fruit of death that was manifesting out of them towards him.  

Jesus saw something else was to blame for the hurt and injustice he experienced.  Jesus saw death was the father of the fruit that was coming out of the people who were crucifying him.  He saw the people were enslaved through the fear of death.  He saw they were taken captive to sin through death.  Just like Nebuchadnezzar was taken captive to live like a beast when he became a beast.  And that left the people blameless in his heart.  

Yes Jesus felt a sting from the death of the cross but he didnt blame the people for the sting neither did he see the people or the systems of the world as being able to save him from the sting.  Jesus knew there was no salvation from the sting in the world or the systems of the world.  He knew it was the life that was born from the world that was the father of the sting. 

Jesus saw the best the world had to offer him was the death of the cross.  He saw the best mans ability had to offer him was the death of the cross.  So He didnt look to either of them for salvation.  He didnt look to the people and what they did or did not do to be saved from the death and injustice of the cross. 

When we encounter hurt and pain and injustice in this world we are being tempted to try and find deliverance and healing from the hurt we’ve experienced by our own labors to try bring forth justice.  But that is the very system that gave birth to the injustices in the world to begin with.  Trying to bring forth what we say is the good and the right way by our own works is that which causes injustice and can only ever create more injustice and more hurt and pain.

The reason we can get so offended with people and the things they say and do is because we think they can do something to corrupt our lives or keep us from some good thing we need to experience life or have our lives preserved from injustice.  

Example of me driving .....  I can get so busy that I’m always running late.  I can’t stand being late.  I mean it stresses me out.  There are times when I’m driving and I have to catch myself because I am getting offended with everyone and the way they are driving.  Now the only reason I start to get offended is because I believe the way they are driving is keeping me from getting to where I need to be on time.  And because I place such a high value on punctuality in my mind its as if they are in the way of me having life and peace. 

Jesus didnt see what the people did or did not do as being able to save him from the death in the world or the hurt he was experiencing at the hands of death.  He didnt see the people as standing in the way of him having life.  Neither did he see the people as being able to do something that could preserve his life from the death and the injustice that is in the world on account of death.  Jesus didnt look at the world and the good he could gain from the world as being able to give him justice.  

When Jesus saw injustice was happening to him and he felt pain he didnt see the people as the father of the injustice.  He didn’t blame the people for the injustice of the cross.  Neither did he think he could be saved from the pain he felt by the people behaving the right way.  Jesus knew it was the world and the death in the world that hated him.  He knew that even should the people act the good and the right way that could never save him from the death in the world.  Jesus knew that even if he could get the people to love him and do all the things he said were good and right that couldn’t give him justice or save him from the grave.  

Jesus didn’t see the people that were crucifying him as the enemy he saw death was the enemy.  Jesus saw the real enemy.  He saw the real enemy was death.   Jesus saw death was the Father of the hurt and the injustice he experienced in the world and he saw the world and it’s systems and mans ability to produce life could never eradicate death from his flesh or from the earth.  When Jesus looked at the injustice he experienced and he looked at mans ability and the systems in the world he knew neither the world or anything in the world could give him salvation from the death he was experiencing.  

Jesus didnt see the world as being able to give him justice so he didnt look to the world and what he could bring forth in the world to find justice from the death of the cross.  Jesus didn’t see the people and the way they behaved towards him as being able to serve him with justice.  So he also didn’t look to the people and how they behaved for justice.  Jesus saw the only justice there was would be in him being saved from death.  And he saw the only thing that possessed the ability to save him from death and the effects death was having on his heart was the Father and His life.  He saw the only justice there was from the death in the world that was against him was the Father and the life he shared with the Father from the beginning.  

When Jesus experienced hurt and pain on account of the injustice he experienced in the world he didn’t try to deliver himself from the hurt he felt by trying to bring about justice but he cried out to God about the hurt he felt in his heart.  Jesus didn’t look to what he could do to heal himself from the hurt he looked to God to heal the hurt in his heart.  

Jesus saw the Father and the life he shared with the Father from the beginning and the Fathers promise to raise him from the dead and the certainty of life he had in the Father was the only thing that could save him from the injustice in the world and the effect it had on his heart.  He saw the certainty of the life he had in the Father was the only thing that could cause him to overcome the injustice and death in the world and preserve his life.  Because of this his heart wasn’t focused on people and what they did or didn’t do when he felt hurt his heart was focused on the Father and the life he had with the Father from the beginning.  

Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Eph 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Paul says the war that is going on is not with people.  It isn’t people that is warring against us it is the system of sin and death that is at work in the world.  It is the corruption in the world on account of sin and death that is warring against us.  It’s the world and the worlds system that is against us.  Jesus said the world will hate us because it first hated him.  

People are not the enemy.  People are not the source of the injustice we encounter or the hurt we feel.  Neither is people behaving properly the power unto us finding justice from the corruption in the world and experiencing life.  

Our warfare is not against people.  People and what they do are not in a position to give us life or take life away from us.  The world does not possess the ability to give life.  Life and death is not found in what happens to you in this world it’s found in whether you believe on what God has done in Jesus to conquer sin and death in the flesh and give eternal life as a gift.  The injustice in the world can never be healed by the ability of man.  All that ails our lives and torments our lives finds its origin in the death and corruption in the world.  The life that is born from the world is full of torment.  All that ails our lives comes from the life in the world that is subject to corruption.  

When we go to the doctor if the doctor misdiagnoses our ailment then the medicine they prescribe to us will not be able to heal our sickness.  In the same way if we diagnose people as the source of the injustice in the earth instead of seeing it is death that is the father of all injustice.  We will be taken captive to a life where we are always looking to people and the ability of people to preserve our lives from injustice.  If we wrongly diagnose people as the source of the injustice we encounter we will look to our own ability to preserve our lives from injustice instead of looking to God and what He has done in conquering death in the flesh of Jesus to preserve our lives from death and serve us with justice.