You will offend others if you follow God

One passage that really resonates with me in "The Bait of Satan" deals with offending others because one is following God. In my family of origin, Christians or religious people often were put down. Consequently, as an adult I have not been as vocal about my faith as I would like to be.

Bevere makes the point that the religious leaders of Jesus' time were the ones who most vehemently opposed Jesus. And Bevere applies that to today:

Some will not understand you as you move with the Spirit. Don't allow their unpleasant response to deter you from what you know in your heart is true. Don't abort the flow of the Spirit for the desires of men.

If we are to persevere in our faith, others will be offended. Even if we were not followers of Jesus, I'm sure others would be offended with us. So we must soldier on, keeping the "eyes on the prize."

The problem of pride

I'm currently reading a book by John Bevere called "The Bait of Satan". The focus of this book is how Satan cunningly uses pride and offense to separate us from other people.

Bevere explains on page 8 how pride causes us to deny the true pain that we feel when someone offends us:

Pride keeps you from dealing with truth. It distorts your vision. You never change when you think everything is fine. Pride hardens your heart and dims the eyes of your understanding. It keeps you from the change of heart -- repentance -- that will set you free. Pride causes you to view yourself as a victim.

I personally have gone through life being on the lookout for people to offend me, and then I have severed ties (or my heart) with people. How easily I have fallen into Satan's trap! As we know from Matthew 18:21-22, we are to forgive others an infinite number of times.