Hi, this is Victoria. Thank you so much for downloading this podcast. I believe God has amazing

things in your future. I hope you enjoy this message.

I want to encourage us all this morning to keep our heart free from offense.

Offense is everywhere. Jesus said, as long as you're here, offense will come. As long as we live in

this world, someone's going to say something that we don't understand, something that hurts our

feelings. Maybe your husband doesn't listen to your opinion. There's always going to be reasons

to take up an offense, an opportunity to take it in. You know, it's interesting because, you know,

the people that you're around are one thing. But how about the people that you've never even met?

And you don't know me about that. Everybody's opinion can go public these days on social media.

You begin to read somebody's opinion. You hear what they're railing against. Kind of blusters you.

You think I don't agree with that. Why would they say that? Then you begin getting all upset.

You call your brother. You call your sister. You call your neighbor. Can you believe that they think

that? In that crazy? You say, you begin to get frustrated and upset and spend energy on that offense,

on those things that don't really even matter. You see, it's as if we're taking the bait. See,

we cannot take the bait of offense and live in victory, joy and peace. We gotta let it go.

We can't let it get on us. We can't swallow the bait. In fact, in the scripture, the word offense

comes from the Greek word that means bait. It was used to lure animals into a trap. See, the bait

or the offense was what got the animals to come on in and take the bait. And sometimes that's

what happens to us with offense. It lures us right into a trap. We get caught up in this circle of

offense, in this trap of offense. We get upset. We get frustrated. We get bitter because we've swallowed

it, hooked, lined and sinker. So we spend our time trying to figure out what somebody meant,

dissecting every word. That's a waste of our time. What in the world could be so important

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