An underlying key of being approachable and disarming is to truly—in your heart, in the quiet moments, in your thought life, in the tiring and difficult stories—be impossible to offend; be unoffendable.
Offense is sneaky. It always convinces its victims of their “justified” opinions; the more accurate term is “indignant”. Offense is the mask of self-righteousness. It is the claim that oneself is in any kind of position to decide what actions of others are right or wrong.
Even if someone murders you in cold blood, you—being human like all of us needing redemption from Jesus—are too drunk on sin to know why or how the murder was unjust. Only Jesus is fair and just enough to make the ruling on even your own murder.
Wrong is wrong still, but you and I cannot be judge, jury, and executioner.
The great lie from the demons of Offense is, “Letting go of the emotions against the offender equates to agreeing that the offender was right.” Nothing could be farther from the truth or deeper from the pit of Hell.
The anti-Christian mind cannot comprehend the difference between forgiveness and agreement. We all must learn forgiveness, every day, no matter how old we get. We never actually learn to forgive; but some learn to keep fighting back the possibility of being offendable.
On some levels, “forgiveness” is a financial term, meaning to wipe out a debt. In life, it means to “not seek blood or payment” of what someone did to you, nor even restitution. In Christianity, that means “collecting repayment from Jesus”.
Financial comes first: Give up the need to collect on damages owed. Just ask Jesus to repay your loss double, don’t seek repayment one cent from the offender, and see what Jesus does. If the offender pays you, give it to charity. Then, your emotional freedom can follow.
We still need to fire people. We must hold our watch and stand for our standards. Just drop your rage about it. Drop the logical arguments about it from your mind. “Forgive” emotionally until you can return kindness. Kindness returned for injury gets under the offender’s skin, bringing everyone much more justice.
Proverbs 15:3, Matthew 6:14-15, Colossians 3:12-13