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October 22, 2024 20 mins

Offense is something we all face, but holding onto it can steal our peace and joy. In today’s episode, I’m sharing powerful truths from my upcoming book, Breaking Free from Offense. We’ll talk about how to let go of hurt, find freedom in forgiveness, and live out the grace God has given us. If you’re ready to stop letting offense hold you back and start living in the freedom God promises, this episode is for you.

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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
Welcome to FaithWorks. Real life, real truth. I'm Josh Mullins and together we'll explore how Biblical truths shape the way we live every day. No fluff, just real talk, real faith, and a real God who's with us in it all. Badger here.

(00:30):
Welcome back everybody, Josh Mullins here. We are going to continue with this segment, this series from my new upcoming book called Over It.

(00:54):
Now, we've established what offense is, being offended, being hurt, being bitter. We've already established that we're now to the point of what do we do now? What do we do now? Are we going to continue to live in deception to say we're okay?

(01:16):
Or are we going to expose the pain? Because when you don't expose the pain, when healing hits where it hurts most, it's not going to heal if you don't acknowledge it. So acknowledging is your first step.
So that's one of the things when we come to Christ, we have to acknowledge that we are lost. We're sinners. We have to acknowledge that before we can come unto God, the grace of God. And one of the things is, the first thing is, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

(01:52):
And some of you might be saying, yeah, I am filled with the Holy Spirit. So was I. But we have to be sensitive. See, we can have the Holy Spirit, but does he have you? Does he fully have you? That's one of the things that he didn't have of me.
He didn't fully have me. And there's some things that you can do to exercise the leading of his voice.

(02:18):
One of the things is, is just be honest and be real with God and say, look, Lord, you know who I am. You know what you know me better than me. And I don't know how to let go of this hurt.
I don't even know where to begin. See, everybody, God's going to use different things for different people. I mean, he's going to use his word.

(02:39):
But he might use a different method, you know, I mean, in the way of a strategy or whatever you want to call it. He's not going to use the same scriptures he used with me.
He's not going to say, use the same below the belt moments with you as he did me. So, but I'm going to share my below the belt moments.
I'm going to share with you what he did with me because honestly, I was not ready for that that point to move forward because I lived in this thing so long.

(03:11):
I didn't know how to get out. I didn't. I had no idea how to get out. And quite frankly, I didn't want to get out at first until I seen how ugly a fence is.
How ugly I was when I finally looked into the mirror of God's word and seen myself when God exposed me.

(03:33):
And one of the things that we how we deny ourselves in not acknowledging our hurt is we tap and just poke on the sensitive areas just lightly saying I'm okay.
I'm all right. No, no, no doctoring needed. And to give you an illustration is years ago, I had a hernia and it was bothering me and my parents told me you need to go get that looked at.

(04:08):
I said, no, I'm just sitting there lightly pushing on it. I'm okay. Just I was just barely pushing on it. And I was like, it's fine. Okay, I'm fine.
But I had this. It was, you know, sticking out and it's okay. I mean, just lightly pushing it. And that's what we do with our offense.

(04:30):
That's what we do with our hurt, our bitter, you know, everything that we do, our anger, our bitterness, we just lightly touch it and say, I'm fine. Okay, I'm fine.
Okay. So finally, I went to the doctor and the doctor, he was a surgeon and he was going to, you know, do surgery on me and patch me up and whatever that mesh he was going to put on me.

(04:52):
But I was just going through the consultation and he laid me on the table and he said, relax. And he didn't just lightly push on the area.
He got in there and I came up off that table with a drawn fist and I'm telling you what, it lit me up. It was, oh my gosh, it, he wasn't playing.

(05:16):
And that's what we do with our, our sin, our offense. We lightly push on it. It's a surface, surface type touch. I'm okay.
But when God comes in and this is why I call the below the belt moments because God will push on you and make you come off that table with a drawn fist.

(05:43):
And I'm going to tell you, I've come up off that, off of God's examination table with a drawn fist and he got my attention.
Now I know, ow, I'm hurting. I can't, I cannot, I mean, I can't just walk through life now knowing that man, this really, this is a problem.

(06:07):
I didn't, this was not an overnight issue. You know, I didn't come to grips overnight. It took, to be honest with you, it took a few more years before I even came that close to acknowledge that I was hurt.
See, I was just sweeping it under the rug. I kept tripping on it. And one of the things is, is when you don't acknowledge your pain, you're in pride.

(06:33):
I say that, but you're in pride. So God let me off that table. And I want you to experience this thing so much because you don't have time to live in that hurt, that offense.
So we cannot heal what we don't acknowledge. That is the first step. See, when we come to Christ, we have to acknowledge where we are spiritually. We were spiritually dead because the Bible says in

(07:06):
Matthew, in the Beatitudes, I think it's Matthew five, it says, blessed are those that are poor in spirit. What that word poor means is that you're spiritually bankrupt.
You have to acknowledge that you're spiritually bankrupt without him. And you come to him. And he blesses you because you acknowledge that you're spiritually bankrupt without him.

(07:33):
So one of the things is the acknowledging part is the first step. And the second step is humbling yourself. And acknowledging and humbling yourself is the bedrock toward reconciliation.
Actually, it's the bedrock toward repentance and repentance is the foundation and the structure toward forgiveness and forgiveness and all these things together are critical and necessary for reconciliation.

(08:10):
So the overall message here of this entire book is those that hurt you, those that hurt you, you have to have a God's ultimate plan is to have reconciliation with them.
It's not just about forgiveness and we're going to go through these below the belt moments, if you will. So how do we get to that place?

(08:36):
How do we move from pretending to acknowledging the hurt? And it starts with being brutally honest and being on God's examination table.
And sometimes even with the people who hurt you that we have to be honest with and you can't heal what you keep hidden. It's uncomfortable. It's raw, but it is necessary.

(09:02):
So here's what we don't often realize. Ignoring the hurt doesn't just affect you. It seeps into every area of your life. It makes you defensive, suspicious and even cynical.
So one of the things is, if you're saying I'm not offended, I'm not hurt and you're still walking around miserable, you're walking around with triggers.

(09:23):
That's one of the things that I learned about triggers because there were certain things that would trigger me and I didn't see it at first because I was familiar with my lifestyle, how I was living.
But then the triggers, I started recognizing the triggers and how I felt towards certain people or when certain people's names were mentioned, it would trigger me and my tone would change.

(09:48):
So watch for that. Watch for that thing.
So the first below the belt moment, we're going to get into the blow the belt moments. This is the thing that I pray that God gets you. Get on his examination table.
Yes, it's going to be painful. It's going to be a bittersweet experience, but it's necessary.

(10:13):
So the first below the belt moment, God exposes what we hide.
You can't just poke on the area softly and say, I'm okay. Let God poke on it.
So this is the first time God really hit me and he told me that I needed to repent.

(10:38):
I didn't want to hear that repent for what? What did I do that I need repenting?
I was the one that been hurt. I wasn't the one who needed to repent.
The people who wronged me were the ones who needed to repent. And that's how I saw it.
But here's the truth that hit me hard. The pain done to me created sin in me.

(11:04):
And it was the sin is where I repaid evil for evil. I became bitter. Bitterness is a sin.
It's a root of evil. I became angry. I hated those people. I had unforgiveness in my heart.

(11:27):
I mean, I would be honest with you, I would have really bad thoughts toward them.
I mean, really bad. Not going to get into that, but it was bad.
And I'm sure you could relate to what I'm talking about when somebody has hurt you.
You can, it's like a movie playing in your head and it's like, man, if I could get my hands on this is what I would do.

(11:49):
If I could just be in a room with a, with a, the doors locked, this is what I would do to them.
Now I'm being real here. So the Bible says in Romans 12 17, it says,
recompense no man evil for evil. Don't repay evil for evil.
But that's exactly what I was doing in my heart. I was justifying my bitterness.

(12:13):
I was holding onto it like I was, it was protecting me.
But it, all I was doing was poison. It was poisoning me from the inside out.
And God was saying, it's time to face the pain and let it go. You need to get over it.
That's where I come up with the book title over it. You need to repent of the bitterness,
repent of the anger, repent of the unforgiveness you've allowed to take root in your heart.

(12:36):
And that was the moment when I realized that holding onto pain was not protecting me.
It was destroying me. So acknowledging your pain, then repenting.
I wish I could tell you I repented quickly, but I didn't.
So second below the belt moment, forgiveness isn't conditional.

(12:57):
So we come to another point within months later.
Once I admitted that I was hurt and I repented for my bitterness.
I thought the hardest part was over, but then God hit me with the second below the belt moment.
He says, you need to forgive the people who hurt you.
Now, I'll be honest with you. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I told God, fine, I'll forgive them.

(13:21):
But I don't want ever, I don't want anything to ever do with them again.
To me, that seemed like a fair deal. Forgiveness from a distance.
But God was not having that. He was not accepting that.
And then he hit me. This is where it hit me.

(13:44):
He pressed on me again and said, what if I forgave you, but wanted nothing to do with you ever again?
And that hit me hard. I still remember.
I still remember how it made me feel.
And I said, God, that's not your nature.

(14:06):
Your nature is to forgive always.
And he said, it's neither your nature either.
You need to forgive them and stop putting on lip service.
And stop putting on an outward smile and an outward act.

(14:29):
And that one was the pretty bad one right there for him to say that.
And I couldn't imagine, I was starting to think, I couldn't imagine a God that is a God of forgiveness, says he forgives me,
but doesn't want anything to do with me ever again.

(14:52):
This is why I have a hard time watching people hate one another and, you know, destroy relationships.
And people walk away and say, they have the mindset it's easier to kill a relationship than to restore one.

(15:14):
Just to, you know, that's pride, guys. It's pride.
And again, you can't just put on lip service and say, I forgive you or we put up boundaries and we'll get into that later about boundaries
because there are good boundaries and there's false boundaries.
We say, we call something a boundary when it's really not.

(15:38):
It's just a, I don't want anything to do with you type of boundary.
We put a different name on it just like we do love, you know, and acceptance, you know.
That's, it's all been perverted.
So that one right there hit me hard.
And then the third below the belt moment, it says, you know, the regret of unforgiveness.

(16:07):
And this one was a, from a friend of mine, he shared a story of harboring deep hatred towards someone who had wronged him.
I mean, somebody that wrong, he shared some deep stuff with me.
And he said for years he held on to this anger much like I had.
He refused to forgive thinking it was his way of holding on to control.

(16:29):
But then life hit hard for him.
That person who had hurt him passed away.
And my friend said he never got the chance to make it right.
He spent so many years nursing his bitterness and missed the opportunity to make things right.

(16:52):
He said he stood over this person's casket crying.
And his wife come to him and said, why are you crying?
You hated this person.
He says, I'm crying because of what it should have been.
I'll never get the chance to fix that.
And that hit me hard thinking, man, I don't ever want that regret.

(17:17):
I don't think I could bear that regret.
And the Lord was already working on me.
And those were the below the belt moments.
Yes, I'm going to leave you with this healing hurts.
Pain hurts, but it's worth it.
What I've learned through these below the belt moments is this.

(17:42):
Healing isn't always comfortable, but it's always necessary.
God's ultimate plan is reconciliation.
We're going to talk about a lot of things here.
A lot of things because there's a process here and it just doesn't happen overnight.
And I'm trying to spare you some time to make it right on your part because

(18:06):
we don't have time to waste.
There's so many people hating one another.
There's so many people that won't let anybody else off the hook,
but you want to be off the hook.
You want somebody to have grace and mercy toward you,
but you don't want to repay the same thing.
You don't, you don't, it's just a wicked, wicked thing.

(18:31):
And Jesus in the parable said the same thing about the man that owed so much money
to the king that the king forgave his debt,
but the man walked out and demanded his debt or a man's other debt toward him.
He commended it to be paid back and the king called that man wicked.

(18:55):
There was a lot of great things that we've been forgiven of.
Just think about that. Don't forget where you came from and what you've been forgiven of.
And we're not asking.
Nobody's asking you to expose your past sins,
but remember where you came from and don't forget it.

(19:17):
I'm going to stop there. God bless you. I told you there's a lot here.
There's so much more. Just hope you follow with me.
So God bless you guys and we'll see you next time.
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(19:49):
Thanks for joining me today on Faithworks. Real life, real truth.
I hope you found something that speaks to you and helps you live out your faith more boldly.
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to follow, like and share the podcast with others.
Until next time, stay grounded in truth and keep living out your faith.

(20:10):
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(20:36):
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