“Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” – Luke 7:23 {ESV}
That’s a beatitude from the Lord Jesus which rarely gets any press. This statement from the Son of God is found in one of my favorite passages in the Gospels. John the Baptist’s ministry comet had crashed. The baptizer went from the marquis name in prophetic ministry in Israel as he challenged the religious status quo to finding himself languishing in prison wrestling with his personal faith in the Messiah. John the Baptist was the one who had bellowed to the crowd one day as Jesus of Nazareth approached, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” In Luke chapter 7 he had sent messengers from outside his jail cell to Jesus to learn the Messiah’s response to John’s question, “Are you the One sent from God or do we need to look for another?” Circumstances had turned against him and his dogmatic exclamation points had tunred into limp question marks.
You aren’t the only person who has had to square away what you believe about God with what is going on in your life. One of the most common offenses for people is to proclaim in seasons of ease that God is great, only to enter into a season of struggle, pain or doubt and consequently find themselves saying, “Who is this God I once so easily trusted?” This is what Jesus is referring to when He sent word back to John in jail and said, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.” Now that is not all that Jesus said but it was the last thing He said to John via his messengers. He took the time to send word to John about all the signs that He was doing. He was giving sight to the blind, causing the deaf to hear, cleansing lepers, raising the dead and proclaiming hope to the brokenhearted and destitute. These were all fulfillments of Messianic prophecy and Jesus wanted John to be encouraged that he had not made a mistake when he had announced Jesus was God’s anointed One. Jail had not changed the reality of who Jesus was. Your circumstances don’t change Him either.
When sickness and pain find you, don’t be offended at God. When that beautiful person in your life will never be with you on earth again, don’t be offended with God. When material blessings stop flowing in your direction, don’t be offended with God. When your spiritual vitality seems to be drying up and your joy is replaced with dust, don’t be offended at God. You see, our faith should not be trusted if it cannot be tested. Jesus shared words which echo down to you today; I paraphrase and amplify what He was communicating:
“The ones who endure with Me, refusing to lose confidence in My wisdom and goodness are the same ones who are most blessed. The ones who persevere and choose to sing My praises even when the tune sounds a little hollow, these will be the ones most blessed. Those who rest in My promises even when circumstances hide them in darkness, these are the children of God who will find lasting treasure. Blessed is the person who is not offended by Me.”
I have gone from ! to ? and back again more times than I can count. We should be encouraged that the same man that Jesus deemed the greatest prophet of his generation also had to battle with this type of faith-struggle. So I suppose that it’s okay if you are in that process also. Just don’t get offended while God is straightening back out your ? so it will stand tall in the end as a ! Something tells me you are closer than you think.
I hope so!