I will praise, thank, and confess You, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. Psalm 9:1.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
My great love for you is manifested in Jesus and your appreciation of and return of that love to Me comes in your joy in receiving your salvation in Him, for in Him I have freely given you all I am and My whole heart towards you not counting your sins and trespasses against you but cleansing them all away by the blood of Jesus as if they had never been. I have no offense in My heart towards anyone for I have justly removed all that could have offended Me.
Do you recall Jesus’ encounter with Zaccheus? Zaccheus was a tax collector and a very rich man. He had rejected serving Me and had gone after the worship of money. He had offended the religious leaders and those who adhered to Me as their choice over the pagan Roman ways and had been rejected by his people. Worse yet, he was defrauding in his tax collecting his own brethren to make himself very wealthy at their expense. His actions were condoned by Rome but that did not make them right in My eyes. But, like Nicodemus (a religious leader who kept the law within the light he had) he was seeking to see Jesus so intentionally that he climbed a tree so he could see Jesus over the crowd. That was enough of an open door in his heart for Me. I directed Jesus to him.
When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” And he hurried and came down and received Him with REJOICING.” Luke 19:5-6.
Zaccheus received Jesus into his home and not only into his home, but into his heart. He knew salvation had come to him by My direction and choice, it could have been nothing less for Jesus to know him and say He had to stay at his house that day. And My good will towards him gave him a change of heart. Zaccheus became generous to the very people who had offended him by their rejection of him. He changed his heart and proclaimed he would give half of all that unjust wealth he had piled up to the poor and pay back anyone he had defrauded of anything four times as much. He took advantage of My offer, I sent My Son into the world so that you might live through Him.
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:9.
If you live your life in Him, you will be without sin. If you go your own way (the way of your offended flesh) you will ruin your day. Jesus had many opportunities to be offended—with the people of His hometown, with the scribes, Pharisees and priests who should have been His most fervent followers but instead were His worst persecutors and finally crucified Him, first in their hearts and then by their “Law,” and even with His disciples for there who those among them who deserted Him when He needed them the most, denied Him, and betrayed Him. When I raised Him from the dead, He went to them and gave them His shalom peace. All was rectified in the blood He had shed for those who loved Him and those who hated and rejected Him. He paid the ransom for ALL. Whether you receive that gift is up to you, without Him you must face judgment with your own sins, with Him you have passed from death to life for in receiving Him you received all He did for you and your sins are gone, borne by Him who knew no sin but became sin for you all.
By the gift of salvation, Zaccheus had given his whole heart to Me. My question today is: have you? If you are harboring offense against another so that it is dominating your thoughts, your whole heart is not Mine and you are not fully enjoying My presence and help as you could.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 1 John 4:7-13.
This may seem discouraging if you are holding offense in your heart even though you want to love Me with your whole heart. And I foresaw that, so for you who have received My Son, I have given you a Helper to be in you and with you, My Holy Spirit. Jesus won Him for you with He released you from all your sins by taking them on Himself and taking your judgment and sentence and paying off and satisfying them both. Now that you are a new creation in Christ, regenerated by the incorruptible seed of My Word, your spirit is alive to Me and I have poured My love in your heart by the gift of My Holy Spirit. So you have My love in you with which to love and forgive so that offense is not planted as a bitter root to entwine around your heart and close your door to all My benefits freely flowing into you and then once you are full to overflow to others. But with this gift, I knew from the foundation of the world you needed more so I have given you the joy of being able to produce within your spirit the fruit of My Spirit, which are My divine characteristics all wrapped up in one fruit that you can receive, grow and bring to maturity to feed upon yourself and give to others if you will just attach to Me in My Son by making My Word what you obey as your ultimate authority.
Let Me remind you of a truth you may have forgotten. One reason people keep offense is they feel that those who hurt them are getting away with it with no consequences. This is not the case. When you chose to enter into Covenant with Me, which you have done in Christ but before He came in the flesh and died and rose they did this by receiving My Word as given through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets, you became Mine and are the apple of My eye. And when people come against you, they come against Me, and if they refuse to repent, I take care of that justly, as I did with the Egyptians who pursued My people and would not release them from enslavement and as I did with Herod as he continued to imprison and kill My people. I even told Paul when he was still called Saul that in persecuting My followers he was persecuting Me. And if you recall when the people complained about and rebelled against Moses, I told them it was not Moses but Me they were coming against. I am a just judge and vengeance is Mine. Your vindication is from Me. I try to save everyone but you have free will. So do not worry. It is not your business though to take offense so that justice will be done. And here I am not speaking of crimes such as physical abuse, robbery, or murder, those must be reported to the law enforcement and such activity curtailed immediately, but it is usually not criminal activity that people take offense at and hold for years in their hearts. But in any case, let go of offense and cast that burden on Me. I can handle it. Let Me take care of you. I read hearts, you cannot.
Once you realize, as Joseph the son of Jacob did, I am taking care of you and no matter what anyone has done against you, if you will just not take offense but turn to Me with your whole heart, I can take you through that to your promised land. I set a table before you in the sigh of your foes. And with Joseph, those brothers who harmed him, I forced them to come bow before him. But even then he did not take justice in his own hands and harm them, he left that between them and Me. Instead he blessed them and was good to them. And he won them over to Me and they repented. But he remained the prince among his brothers.
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45.
Now that said, let us go forward because your assignment is to bear good fruit that endures and not bitter roots that produce only toxic fruit that perishes. So look now at your inner life for that is where the type of fruit you will produce is determined, not by Me but by you.
Do you remember what the fruit of the Spirit is? It is time for you to pursue it and grow it on your branch. It will make you complete in Christ. Are you interested in this? But the main question is are you fed up enough with living under the torment of offense to be serious about taking that stronghold down and getting it out of your heart so you are not hindered in your reception of all I have for you and all the good deeds I have prepared for you to walk in?
If your answer is a sincere “YES, I am all in,” then let’s go forward, because in My eyes you are already there by your desire. I see the end from the beginning and so should you. See yourself with no offense, bitterness, or ill will and you are already on the road there. Even if you were to pass to eternity before it is complete I have counted it to you as righteousness. I told Moses that Caleb had followed Me fully with all his heart before he ever stepped foot into the Promised Land because he was willing to follow Me with all his heart.
But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it. Numbers 14:24.
Now, let us look at the fruit of the Spirit but see it in a new light this time.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.
You see the combination and progression: you are made in My image and likeness and I am love, love produces joy, love and joy produce peace, love, joy and peace produce patience, love, joy, peace, and patience produce kindness, love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness produce goodness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness produce faithfulness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness produce gentleness, and all together these ingredients produce self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is what makes your life beautiful, treasured, and precious. It makes you just like Me. This fruit is never toxic, never produces an action you will regret or be ashamed of, and never harms the neighbor. It fulfills the law and the prophets so there are no restrictions on those who are producing only this fruit with no mixture.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Corinthians 3:17.
If you walk in these you are worshipping Me with your whole heart—a heart after My own heart.
I love you. I have given you the ability and the capability to produce the fruit of the Spirit. And it should not be difficult for you because that is who you are.