Jesus told His disciples that in this life, there will always be an opportunity to become offended. However, offence will only keep us from receiving and living in the grace of God. Jesus told them they would even be offended by Him (Matthew 26:31). That word “offend” in the original speaks of being entrapped or to cause distrust. Another meaning is to be enticed to sin. Mark 4:16-17 speaks of believers who hear the word of God and joyfully accept it into their lives. God’s promises bring great encouragement to them and fill their hearts with peace and joy. However, if they aren’t diligent to allow those words of truth to penetrate deep within their hearts and root themselves there, they will not produce an unshakable trust in the faithful nature of God. When trouble and persecution comes and their faith is put to the test, instead of holding firm onto their faith in God and His faithfulness to perform His word concerning them, they become offended and say things like, “This faith thing doesn’t work for me.”. As a result, they stumble or fall away from the faith. We must become believers who know and continually believe and do what God’s word teaches us to do. We must do away with any doubt in the credibility of His word and learn to use His powerful Name. Then, when tough times come, and they will, instead of becoming offended because of shallow faith, we stand strong in the Lord, keeping our trust in Him, and without fail – victory will be our testimony!