By Robert Hitchman
AND GRIEVE NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD
EPHESIANS 4:30
If you’ve been attending church for any length of time I’m sure you’ve heard someone say words to the effect “Keep sin out of your life because you don’t want to offend God.” Well, are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? You CANNOT offend God! YES, that’s right, I said it. You CANNOT offend God. Let me explain.
BACK TO SCHOOL
You see the Bible says to “Study to show yourself approved … rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Tim 2:15. So you must study and RIGHTLY DIVIDE what words actually mean instead of just using words you heard someone else say to express yourself. I’ve heard it said that because the Word says to rightly divide that means there’s a possibility that you can “wrongly divide”. And unfortunately, I believe we have had a lot of that in the Body of Christ. That’s why it’s so important to study the Word in context and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
There are about 6 Hebrew and 4 Greek words translated offend or offended in the Bible. Most of the time in the Bible it’s the Hebrew word mikshowl or mikshol. Basically, the word means either to trip or cause to stumble. In the New Testament, the Greek word you come across most often is skandalizo. It means to scandalize, entice to sin, entrap as well as to trip up or cause to stumble. In the light of this I think that’s pretty obvious that you can’t offend God. Think about it, how is anyone going trip up or cause God to stumble or entrap Him? Do you think anyone can entice Him to sin? Do you really think that you or anyone else out there is so big and bad that he can do any of those things to God? No one is going to be able to scandalize God, although people certainly have tried. It doesn’t matter what sin you’ve done, God knew about it before you did it. That’s why He sent His Son Jesus to the Cross to shed His Blood and cleanse you of that sin.
GRIEVE NOT HIS SPIRIT
If you can’t offend God, what is the word you’re looking for? It’s the word grieve, not offend. Remember, study and rightly divide. There’s about 4 Hebrew words and about a dozen Greek words translated grieve in the Bible. One of the main Greek words is lupeo which basically means to sadden, sorrow, to make sorrowful, make heavy or even mad or vexed. Yes, you can sadden or do those other things to God.
Nowhere in an accurate translation of the Bible do you find the term or words to the effect “Don’t offend God”, but you do find the term “Don’t grieve God, grieve not His Holy Spirit.” etc.[1] You can make God sad because like us He does have emotions, (Heb 4:15), but unlike some of us He’s not controlled by them.
Now obviously you do need to keep sin out of your life, but not to avoid offending God, but rather to avoid making Him sad (among other reasons). Why does sin make Him sad? Because He knows that sin is deadly. He knows that the wages of sin is death. Not just the end of your life, but practiced or habitual sin can kill your marriage, your family, your business, your health, your finances, etc. and He wants the best for you. It makes Him sad when you make the wrong choices and keep sin in your life which can hinder His blessing from flowing as freely and abundantly in your life as both He and you would like. If you sow to the flesh you will reap corruption. Besides that, He’s a Holy God and while it’s true He’ll never leave you or forsake you, He can’t fellowship with you or manifest His presence in your life to the degree He really wants to if you consistently walk in sin. You see, it’s the anointing of God that removes burdens and destroys yokes. Sin is a yoke that can produce a burden in your life. So, you see if your life is constantly entangled in sin and God were to release the full power of His Anointing on your life, it would not only destroy the sin, but it would also take you out with it, i.e. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5).
KEEP GOD’S HOUSE CLEAN
That’s speaking on a personal level. Unfortunately, there are whole churches that God can’t release His anointing to the degree He would like to because there’s so much sin going on in them. The Pastor is so afraid of offending people that he lets the congregation do whatever they want without addressing it. He’s just happy that some people are there. But that type of attitude is the reason so many churches are devoid of God’s power. And it’s the Power of God that the world is looking for.
So, you see that’s the real reason, on a personal and corporate level, that we need to keep sin out of our lives. And it would behoove us not to allow ourselves to get offended.
Remember, you’re God’s child so if He’s not going to get offended, neither should you. SELAH!
[1] I do realize that there’s an accurate version of the Bible that includes the phrase “Don’t offend God.” In fact, in my book I’ve quoted from it, but you must understand that while the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, all the different versions were not, even the good ones. That is one of the reasons I believe God gave us the Holy Spirit on an individual basis. So we can pray and get accurate revelation from His Word, even when the translators don’t always get it exactly right.
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