Be Unoffendable

Offense is everywhere—but living offended doesn’t have to be your normal.

In this episode, we dive deep into what Scripture says about offense, being offended, and how it quietly steals our peace, relationships, and spiritual growth. If you’ve ever felt hurt, misunderstood, or triggered by someone’s words or actions, this conversation is for you.

We unpack how offense can take root in the heart, how the enemy uses it to create division, and most importantly—how God calls us to rise above it. Through biblical truth, real-life application, and honest reflection, you’ll learn how to guard your heart, respond instead of react, and walk in freedom.

This episode isn’t about pretending things don’t hurt—it’s about healing so deeply that offense no longer controls you.

✨ You don’t have to carry what hurt you.
 ✨ You can live unoffendable.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hey guys, welcome back to a Rebel No More podcast with your host Jane Fearstock. Today we're talking about something that can hit all of us: offense. Being offended, holding on to hurt, and how easy it is to react based on our feelings instead of our faith. As I navigate this life as a Christian, I find that whether you're a Christian or not, being offended is something that all of us struggle with. Yes, there are some of us out there that probably don't get offended as easily, but you know, we are all human beings. We all have our own feelings and our opinions. And when somebody does something that we either disagree with, we don't like, or, you know, whatever, it's gonna cause us to react. And how we choose to react is probably gonna determine the actual outcome of it. So when we choose to live in offense, we're basically choosing our own. I'm more important than you, I'm mad at you, I'm hurt, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever it is the situation is. Okay, this logic can be applied across the board, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's with a stranger, I whatever. I can speak firsthand on this because I did struggle with offense. I'm gonna say that again because I said some key words in there. I did struggle with offense. I don't struggle with it now because I understand that it's a choice that I'm making in that particular moment. Am I perfect at not being offended? Absolutely not. No, no way am I living a life undefendable. Even though I understand what offense is, where it comes from, I still lack the ability to fully live my life unoffendable. Ideally, that's my goal. And whether you're a Christian or not, that should probably be a pretty good life goal for all of us to live unoffendable. And the reality to living unoffendable is you're giving yourself the power to say, I'm not gonna allow this person to make me respond in any way that I don't want to respond. So if you happen to be someone who doesn't struggle with being offended or gets offended easily, you're very lucky and very blessed. There are some people out there that absolutely can just be like, whatever. I don't, you can be mad at me. I don't I don't care. And that's great that there are people out there like that. I really do um, I don't want to strive to be like that necessarily, but it would be nice to navigate life without offense. Because when we get caught up in offense, we get so caught up in what someone did to us. And you know, let's be honest here. You might be the one that caused someone to become offended. And just because you're offended does not make you right. We gotta remember that too. Um, I think we get so lost in people's tone and in their body language, and then information gets lost in between that because you're focusing on how the person's talking, what they're saying, what words they're using. Well, that tone was off. I didn't like the word choice, and now you're not listening. Like you kind of created that own you know, offense right there. So, you know, not only do we have to learn to live unoffendable, there's another another side to this, but we also need to be mindful and not cause others to stumble or cause others to become offended. Because we can do that, we literally can cause someone else to stumble. And you know, we don't we don't want to do that, we don't we don't want to cause someone else a hardship, uh especially with your faith, because I'm pretty sure God isn't um we're not supposed to offend each other, and we're definitely not supposed to cause other people to become offended and stumble on their faith walk either, because that's not causing someone to spiritually stumble is just it's not very nice to do, especially when you when you're doing it on purpose or you know, you don't want to be a stumbling block, you don't want to cause anybody, any other hardship that doesn't need to be there. And I believe in Luke 17.1 offenses it says that offenses offenses will certainly come. So Luke's telling us that offenses, they're going to come at us. They're like that, like offenses will come, like they're going to come to us. Okay. But woe to the one who whom they come. So Luke is also telling us on the back end of this, we're warned not to be the cause of someone else's offense on on that back end. So while we don't want to live offended, we don't want to cause someone else an offense either. Granted, you're not responsible for that person's actions, but you are responsible if you lead them down that path. If you guide them down that spiritual path of offense, shame on you. I'm not, I'm not judging, I'm just saying, like, we gotta, we we also have to be aware that not only are we responsible for our offenses, but we are also responsible to help others not create offenses or stumble on their own spiritual walk. So uh, you know, it's gonna happen. It's we live in a fallen world, offense is gonna happen, and in a biblical sense, it's more than just being hurt when we become offended. Okay. Um, we we as a Christian, uh, ways that we uh are offended would be examples if you hold on to hurt, if you allow it, your hurt to become to cause you to become bitter, if you allow it to affect your relationship with God and other people. Umse is a pretty heavy, heavy, heavy topic. And it probably would take longer than you know, my podcast of uh 25 to 30 minute time frame to really hammer this out. But I do notice I did struggle, even though I did struggle, I still have to be mindful in situations to not become offended. That's hard. That is very, very, very hard to remind yourself like I have a choice here. I can respond and let that other person know whatever they did or said hurt me, or you know, I could just react and tell them how I feel. And the best way to stay unoffended and to stay out of that little loophole right there, and I did a podcast on this uh not long ago, is forgiveness. We're back in that loop. I talked about how we need to forgive others. It's not easy, and when you forgive, you're not giving them a free pass to do the exact same thing over and over. You use your wisdom, you use your discernment, and you're like, you know what? I can love you, I can forgive you, but you did this and this, so I'm gonna use my wisdom and not put myself in that position to allow that to happen. Offense kind of works the same way, except for when we choose to become offended. Now, you know, now we got to go back and and go back to forgiveness and forgive that person for offending us. And then we need to go back to God. And, you know, you know, I'm sorry I got offended. I allowed my I leaned in onto my own understanding, I listened to my own emotions. So that's the the end result is when we lean on ourselves and we respond to ourselves, and we need to give ourselves, you know what? This per I need I I need justice. I need I need to make sure this person knows they offended me. They they need to know this upset me. No, they don't. No, they don't. Absolutely no, they don't. No, no, they don't. Forgive them. You work on you, you let God work on them. This is your journey, this is you your life, and if you're good vertically with God, then living unoffendable over time and practice and patience and grace and humility, being unoffended over time can actually happen. We will actually be able to live life unoffendable and in return not cause others to stumble. But it's a daily choice that we have to, as a Christian, for me, you have to stay in the word, you have to um keep your eyes centered on God because my I spoke on my past with rebellion and um disobedience. I struggled really, really, really hard with offense because not only was I the one causing other people to stumble, I was stumbling because I was so caught up in what happened, how hurt I was, this was I didn't ask for this, this isn't fair, and you just get caught up in that loop, and it's there there's no reason to be tied up in that loop. You don't need to get even near that. You need to choose to do one of two things. You can either choose to respond in your flesh, and you can let that person know they offended you, you can let that person know you didn't appreciate anything they said, you can let that person know you got angry. Whatever you choose to do in that situation, that's on you. Or you can try to, all right, this sounds cheesy, but how would Jesus handle this situation? Because I'm super offended. This person really upset me with whatever they whatever caused it. I'm struggling, I need to get rid of this offense. What do I do? What do I do? Well, you first don't cause that person to stumble. You don't go running that person down telling them, you made me feel this way. You did, you don't do any of that. You go right to God, you go to prayer, you ask for, you know, hey God, open my heart, open my mind, give me wisdom, show me what, show me, get rid of this offense, make me unoffendable. Forgive me, God, for causing any offense today. Forgive me, God, for becoming offended because guess what? You're going to get offended at some point throughout your day, no matter how far you are on your walk, or if you're just starting out. We're people, we are human beings, and there is nothing we can do to escape that. Our flesh is flesh. That that's just it is what it is. What can we do? What can we control? Our reactions, our responses, how we choose to take that offense and handle it. In my opinion, and in my walk, I've noticed, and I follow a pastor online, um, Kelly Kay ministries along with Ryan Edberg. And sometimes I listen to the two-mile pastor with Luke, but um I think he's on Saturdays on Facebook and YouTube and um TikTok, same with Ryan and and um Kelly Kay. But um I just I don't know where I was going with that. But anyway, they talk a lot about your heart, the posture. Um, you know, if we have a good clean heart and like we're in good good places or whatever, it's always easier to be nice and to be kind and love on each other. It's in those moments that that we get so caught up in how we feel and how we think the situation should go, that we now become offended, we can't think straight, we're now creating a situation that probably wasn't there. We're thinking things that that don't need to be there, that definitely don't align with the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5, 22 and 23. These are all fleshly desires. Get rid of them, God, get rid of it. I don't want it, get rid of it. And eventually, after maybe I'm speaking from my experience. So for me, after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of complete failures and going back to God saying, I'm sorry I did this, I'm sorry I did this again and again and again and again. But you know what? God doesn't go, wow, Jane, uh, you came to me eight times this week, uh, you didn't submit and you were disobedient. Um, you didn't like the information your husband gave you, so you fought back on it. Um, you did this three times this week, you did it eight. God doesn't keep a track of our sins. We go to him, we repent, we ask for forgiveness, we're in that situation again, and we do one of two things. We repeat the same sin, or we learn from the last one. Sometimes, depending on where you're at with your walk and certain things on this journey, you might pick up easier than others, and that is great. I am not like that. I seem to take things the 40-year route. Okay, and by that I mean I'm going to cause offenses and I'm going to get crazy offendable until I'm not. I still get offended today, I still react, I still do the same things I don't want to do. But the difference today than it was before was when I recognize it, and that's key word right there, you guys. When I recognize it, all right, you know what? I did this again. I I need to go to prayer. I need, I need to do this. And you're doing this for yourself and your relationship with God because ultimately, the more you get to know God, the more your relationship grows with Jesus, the more you're going to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. And our flesh is so loud. I know mine is. Mine is always like, go exact whatever God wants you to do. My flesh is like, we're gonna go do the opposite. And then I've got a fight over here on the spiritual and my spiritual and soul side going, uh no, we're not gonna react that way, flesh. Like, calm down, like you're dead, we're alive, you're dead. And I know that on some things I totally, totally get things. Like, for an example, submitting to authority, and I'm and when I'm using this for this example, I'm going to use it with our government, and we have a civic duty to vote. You go cast your vote, you go do your thing, and whatever happens after uh in between that and the election, whatever happens, happens. It happens because God that's what needed to happen. God put whoever in that place. I trust God. I don't need to worry about who's in that office, the Oval Office. That I'm gonna pray for him. Obviously, I don't want anything to happen to anybody, especially someone leading our country, whether you like the person or not. I just don't want any wanting your president to fail is like sitting on a an American Airlines flight and you're praying your pilot like something happens. Like if you're doing that, there's just a whole nother set of issues going on there. But wanting your president to fail is just like stupid. But whether you like it or not, for me, and I'm just speaking on my on my own experience, this just happened to be something ironically, I didn't struggle with when God was like, yo, you need to stop and honor authority. I like spoke, like I put this person in place, get over it. God didn't say it like that, but um for me, it I got the clear understanding, we're not gonna question authority regardless. And for some reason, I don't know why, I'm okay with that. Maybe it's because I literally can't go to anybody and be like, you know, this is a hot mess, we need to get this person out. We need to put the you, you and I have no control over it, certain things after a certain place of whatever it ends somewhere or goes into someone else's hands. You can control who you vote for and who you choose to vote for. After that, you just gotta leave it. If it works out the way you wanted it to, great. If it doesn't, great. Guess what? God's problem, not mine. I wish that worked with offense for me. And it doesn't. It's a struggle. It is literally, and when I say I did struggle with being offended, this is why I said I did, because now I feel like a lot of times I'm in a position I'm slower to speak and I'm listening more. And I know that because I'm paying attention to everything going on around me and I'm seeing things I thought I see, but I'm really seeing. And so for me, okay, thank you for validating that. That's going here. I'm not gonna allow this to bother me. It is what it is. I mean, Jesus, when Jesus was walking this earth, he offended everybody because it was truth, and they didn't want to hear it. They didn't, it ruffled with their own, their own flesh desires, their own plans in life. And and you know, when you start doing that, people kind of shut down and they become offended. So when Jesus was, you know, living and breathing down here in the flesh, uh, he he was he he caused people to become offended. And it's not because it was, you know, Jesus just was like, you know, uh, you can choose to be offended and you can choose to ignore the truth, but the truth is the truth and it's not gonna change. So, I mean, just because something's true doesn't mean you need to be offended by it, or you know, and I'm really trying really hard to learn this because our tone really does carry a lot of weight. It really does. So I can sit here and say, don't worry about somebody's tone, don't worry about their body language, just listen to what They're saying. But when we do that, we're focusing on the colorful things they add to what they're saying. They might add different voice inflections, maybe to get their point across. Or, you know, we're we're gonna pick out what we want to see. And if you're gonna see that person is doing this to be malicious, you're gonna see the malicious. But if you take a step back and listen to what that person's saying, what that person's saying, despite the tone and the delivery and everything else in between, that information might be enough to save your life or give you information you actually needed, but you chose not to get offended by their tone, you got to hear what they were saying. So much is lost in all that in-between stuff that we forget. There's actual information being given. Let's talk, let's quiet down all this other noise and just listen to the actual content of it and not the color to what they're providing. I saw this meme or reel or TikTok, I don't know what it said, but it it made me laugh because it it's so true. It said, My mom, it turns out my mom was always right with what she was telling me. It's just her delivery needed some work. And it and it's like this the same thing goes with scripture. It's like it's all true, it's all there. We get so offended by what we can and can't do, and how we can and can't live, and the things we you know want to do but can't do, and and we get so caught up in this, and now we're offended by by scripture telling us to love our neighbor and God and others. Like, where did this get lost at, guys? I'm just as guilty of it myself, but you know, I had a my friend Kate, her husband, I think it was her husband, said, you know, if we just did everything the Bible told us to, we wouldn't get into the predicaments we get into, but we don't because we lean in our own understanding and we don't listen to, you know, I think it's Proverbs 3, uh, 5. It tells us to trust the Lord with your heart and not to lean on our own on our own understanding. We do that, we think we know better, and we don't. We don't, we get caught up in our feelings, we get caught up in our justice, and at the end of the day, it really is choosing to live in peace and not getting offended. Like, not getting offended, just this is my homework too. Don't get offended, don't get offended. Another thing for me is if I become my testimony, it is solely a lot mostly based on rebellion and disobedience. And when I start saying, like, you know, this is our homework, or I kind of feel like if someone else struggles with that, that now I'm like, great, now I'm making someone not want to read it because now they're gonna fight me and be like, I'm not, I'm not um offended all the time, and it's not easy to offend me. And then you go down this rabbit hole in the ways you can and what offense is, and then you're just like, oh crap, maybe I do get offended easier than I thought. I posted a poll on TikTok and I worded it and said, Are you easily offended? And I did that on purpose because if I was to ask anybody, are you easily offended? they'd probably say no. But really, it's yes. It it is yes. But for me, the piece that I think helps me think about obedience or not obedience, about being offended is that I know I probably have, or and maybe I do, cause maybe family or close friends to stumble. And though that's never my intention, you know, the Lord's Prayer, I believe it tells us to forgive others as, you know, of their trespasses as we forgive. And so, you know, that's a daily thing. Like we are supposed to be doing that daily, forgiving, asking for forgiveness of our trespasses, so of our offenses, and asking forgiveness from others that cause it. Even even if you're not, let's just say, let's say I offended you, like I totally offended you. And you know you need to go to God for this because you know, you're like really mad at me. I just, I really, I really, really upset you. And you're just you're struggling. You're struggling, you're offended, and now you can't forgive me. So now we're stuck in this little loop, right? Well, you know, your your relationship to God is super close, and you know, you don't want to live like this. So you're going to go to prayer and you're going to um ask for forgiveness for not forgiving and becoming offended. And then you're going to ask God, you know, forgive me for feeling this way, even if you don't feel like that. Because even if you don't feel like that in that moment, God sees you working on it, God sees you giving it to Him. And eventually you'll forgive me, and you will no longer be offended by me. So even if you guys struggle with offense, and even if you even if you are the one giving out offenses, like I was, stop. I'm just kidding. It's easier said than done. But really, just take a step back. We can't control what others do or say or anything, right? But you can control you and how you choose to respond. Are you gonna respond out of your emotions? Are you going to respond out of offense? Are you going to respond out of anger? Like, how are you gonna respond in that moment? Because leaning in on our own understanding, you're gonna start giving yourself these green lights to be offended. Well, you know, they did this, they did that, they, you know. If we sit there, we get so stuck in that loop of just get stay away from loops. Let's just get out of them, get out of that, close that, don't go, don't go there. The point of this is, and this probably could be a longer series, and maybe I will do some more on offense and kind of get more um cut into it with the meat and maybe get more involved in it. You know, there's so many um good things in scripture that can help us um not get offended or maybe learn how to navigate that, but you know just you know, tread lightly and just try to remind yourself like you're not that person talking to you or causing that pain or you know, whatever it is that they did to you, or I don't know the story. But for me, I think that I'm going to try to choose to look at that other person and in the way that I want to be looked at, because if you I would want a second chance if I messed up, or a third chance, or a fourth chance, or a fifth chance. That's just I'm a person, I'm not gonna lie. But in order to get those chances, you have to show that you're changing. And in order to change, you have to put motion into it. You have to actively say, I'm not going to get offended today. God, take any offense. Do not, you can even ask God, like, God, I don't want to be offended. Please take whatever it is that's causing this, that whatever it is, just take it. Because as we go through life, it is so easy to lean in on our own understanding and to react and to get offended and to want to make things right in our own way. But God does call us to be higher than that. He tells us to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and soul and not to lean on our own understanding in Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. And you know what? We may not always understand why things happen or why people hurt us, but we can trust that God sees it all. And not only does God see this, you guys, you ready for this? God will handle it. In Romans 12, 19, vengeance belongs to me. I will pay, says the Lord. Now, I don't know if you've read Genesis, but God said, Let there be light, and there was light. So we're talking about a God that just speaks and things happen. He's got vengeance. And I'm gonna guarantee you right now, his vengeance is gonna be way more than what you and I can do. Because again, we're humans. So we don't have to carry the weight of the offense or the bitterness or even worrying about getting even. That's not our role. Our role is to walk in obedience, it is to forgive and to reflect Jesus even when it's hard. Remember, it's always easy to love someone when they're good, but it is very, very hard to love someone when it's not good. So today I will choose to let go of any offense and I will choose to trust God, and I will choose to live as unoffendable as I can be. And it's not because people deserve it, okay, but it's because God is worthy of my obedience, my love for God is so much more, and it's remembering that in those hard times where you want to give into that flesh and take matters into your own hands because you know what? You're hurt, you're wronged, and that's gonna happen. That's life. But leaning on God and trusting that He has our backs and knowing that you can rest knowing that God He's got our backs. And it may not be right now, and that's okay. God has his own timing. But trust God has you, God sees you, God sees us. Let him handle it. You give that offense to him, let him take care of it. Choose to be unoffendable and choose not to cause others to stumble. Thank you guys for listening. If you guys have questions, comments, or want any more information, you can reach me on TikTok, Jane F A Z 17. You can email me JCcrim81 at gmail.com. You can also reach me on Facebook or Rebel No More. I really hope that this helped anybody that may struggle with offense. Um, I know that it's hard. I've been there, still there, still walk it. Um, but we can do this together. Just one day at a time, and you know, give it to God. He's got it. Have a nice day and God bless.