Good afternoon, Drawing Near to God community! We are in our second week of my mini-course, Tearing Down the Fences of Offenses. Isn’t that something we all encounter — offenses? For those that attend our course live or via streaming, I share some notes during my teaching. For those that aren’t able to attend, I always post them here on the blog too so you can follow along.

This week we talked about going from the “Pit to the Palace” and specifically looked at the story of Joseph. Before I get into what we learn from Joseph’s story, I want to share with you a couple more spiritual principles about offenses —

• Offenses in the arsenal of the enemy build fences around relationships and cause destruction
• Offense of the gospel advances the kingdom and tears down the fences of all counterfeit kingdoms

A life application for us is: What gets us into trouble is having what we don’t want and wanting what we don’t have. Isn’t that some food for thought?

But God… The good news is this — Jesus came to save us from what we could never do – keep the law. When we miss the mark, Jesus’ blood covered it.

Now, getting back to the story of Joseph. I encourage you to take a look at Genesis 37-45 and refresh yourself with the story. The key is this – if Joseph had stayed offended, he would have never been able to reach his call. We learn that humility unsets the trap, and forgiveness removes the bait. 

So here are some keys to forgiveness as seen in the story of Joseph… 

When you have truly forgiven someone —

• You do not seek to get even. When there is the desire to punish someone you have not truly forgiven them
• You do not want them to be afraid of you.
• You do not want them to feel guilty or angry with themselves
• You them save face
• You protect them from their greatest fear (45 :9)
• You take away any future fear that someday you will strike at them when the circumstances change. (45:28)

I hope this encourages you today to seek forgiveness when you are offended. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. And it’s never too late to catch up with us in this course – you can sign up to stream whenever and wherever you are!