Yes, Duckie said that line in Pretty in Pink . . . ha!
This comes after reading the book Power Thoughts by Joyce Meyer—a follow-up to her Battlefield of the Mind series.
“Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.” (Jer. 2:19 NIV)
“You of this generation, consider the word of the Lord: “Have I been a desert to Israel or a land of great darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to you no more’ ?” (vs. 31)
“How skilled you are at pursuing love! Even the worst of women can learn from your ways.” (vs. 33)
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mk. 12:30-31 NIV)
“We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 Jo. 4:19 KJV)
“If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” 1 Jo. 4:20 NIV
Blessed is she (insert me) who is not offended of me . . . (from Matt. 11:6 KJV)
Did you know being offended is a sin? (Power Thought 4: I am difficult to Offend p. 321)
{Boy do I wish that statement were true of me: “I am difficult to offend.” This is a study I have only began to scratch the surface upon. If any of you have further thoughts in this area, feel free to share them within the comments.}
Like anger, you might say, it’s not the anger that’s the sin; but the sinning in the anger. But, when I was tempted to look at it that way, I had to put unforgiveness in it’s place—getting rid of my excuse once and for all. What, then, are we to do when we are offended? How are we to respond and avoid stuffing feelings within to produce a deeper anger and bitterness?
“And when the people ask, ‘Why has the “Lord our God done all this to us?’ you will tell them, ‘As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land not your own.’ ” (5:19)
Here He is speaking of the destruction of Israel, but if you put that into perspective—individually—you could say that His punishment comes upon us as we place other things before Him in our own place of abundance; therefore, we end up serving those things in a place that’s not our own.
Set aside how that fits us as a nation and look at it on a more personal level. When I place other things before God, I become in bondage to them. In the place where I first felt comfort, I am now distressed and overwhelmed. Oh, come on, I have even felt that way about my blog.
Are you getting the bigger picture?
