Make sure that everyone guards their heart, to keep themselves in the grace of God, lest a root of bitterness spring up and defile many. Injustices, hurts, offences, and anger - they breach all our relationships. They cause you to have walls, become demonically empowered; then they cause an isolation, and then they overflow with defilement. You start to poison your marriage, poison your children, poison your friendships and relationships, and everywhere the bitterness just flows like a river.
That's not what we're called to be. We're called to be in the house of God, where the river of life flows out of, and that river of life can only flow out of a pure heart, a heart that's free of offence. You've got to keep yourself free of offence. If someone offends you, forgive them. Just forgive them! If it's breached the relationship, go have a talk. Pray. Get your heart right, get all the anger out of it, or you'll end up with a bigger row than you had before.
You can't fix a relationship if you're angry. Get over your anger. Get over your injustice. Grow some meekness in your heart, because meekness, in the eyes of God, is very high price! Offences get you out, but meekness gets you in. You could nut-off, but you don't, because you've surrendered to the Lord, and you understand that He permits offences, in order to grow your character of meekness, like He had. He was reviled and offended, but He didn't react.
He could have called down angels, and burned them up, but He didn't do that. It's His meekness, and His humility, that caused Him to be separated to the purpose of God. He had a joy ahead of Him, seeing people like you and me coming out of darkness, coming out of the dark place, coming into a place of life, coming into the things God has for us - free of offence, free of these things! He did it for us!
Luke 21:16 – “You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death”
We must understand then, the signs of the times we're in. Wars, rumours of war, ethnic conflicts, famines in diverse places, pestilences or viruses that no one can do anything about - that's the hour we're living in now. That's the hour you and I are in right now.
And He says: these are just the beginning of all kinds of things that will come on the earth, and they're leading up to the return of Jesus Christ, the overthrow of the kingdoms of the world, and the establishment of His kingdom.
He has got you in a preparation process, so He gives you a heads-up: guys, when you see these things coming, what do you need to do? He says: watch and pray! Watch and pray! He says a whole number of things we're called to do, to prepare ourselves.
If you have a look right now, you can see right now, how difficult the issue of offences is, and how widespread, the opposition and hatred for the things of God are. You see and feel in the world, a gathering momentum of the antichrist spirit, against everything that's good and right. It's not about left versus right. On the right, there's people just as bad as well. On the extreme right, you've got fanatical people. On the extreme left, you've got fanatical people. In religion, you've got fanatical people. God is looking for kingdom people, that are not caught up in political games.
They say: I want to stand for the kingdom of God! I want to be a part of that rock that brings down the kingdoms of the world and fills the whole earth and makes Jesus Christ Lord!
Matthew 24:30 – “when the last sign comes, then they shall see the Son of Man coming in the glory, His own glory and the glory of His Father, and the glory of all the angels”
Rev 22:12 - "Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Listen, our greatest day is ahead of us! There is a global revival, there's a global moving of the spirit of God in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ. Right now, we need to in our heart say: God, I see! I've been asleep. My prayer life has been slack. Lord, I've been compromising, I've been offended, I've been in my heart Lord, turned against people.