“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.\u00a0See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled<\/em>” (Hebrews 12:9-15).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nLife can be difficult. We were never promised an easy life. Actually, we were told to expect the opposite. “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you<\/em>” (Matthew 5:10-12).<\/p>\nYou have a choice in how to respond to the struggles of life. You can grumble, complain, and become bitter over each of the challenges or you can see them as challenges to be overcome. That is what perseverance is all about.<\/p>\n
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us<\/em>” (Romans 8:1-5).<\/p>\n“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing<\/em>” (James 1:2-4).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYou can’t make the hardships go away but you can change your attitude toward them. Instead of being beaten down by them, use each as an opportunity to grow into a stronger person.<\/p>\n\t
Response:<\/h2>\n
Thank you, Jeffrey.<\/p>\nGod bless.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Hi, I read your article on the spirit of offense. I’ve been a believer for 40 years. Over that time, I’ve been harassed by unbelievers, assaulted by boyfriends who claimed to be saved, bullied by bosses and coworkers, and church workers have been rude and pushy, to say the least. The results? Depression, shame,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[888,455],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-bitterness","tag-offense"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8180,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-spirit-of-offense\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":0},"title":"What is the spirit of offense?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is the spirit of offense? How do you know if you have it? Why do so many churches use this phrase against people to control them? Answer: The phrase \"spirit of offense\" is not found in the Bible. People can cause offenses by their behavior, but using the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38145,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-need-to-apologize-when-i-didnt-intend-to-cause-an-offense\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":1},"title":"Do I need to apologize when I didn’t intend to cause an offense?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello Mr. Jeffrey, I have a question.\u00a0 Recently I visited a church small group. It so happened that the group, which was lead by a man, had 9 women and 2 men which is significantly more skewed than the general church's ratio. I obviously was weirded out by this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24341,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/overcoming-bitterness\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":2},"title":"Overcoming Bitterness","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Lawrence Kelley \"So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37273,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-can-we-be-given-grace-without-repentance\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":3},"title":"How can we be given grace without repentance?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What does this mean? Does this mean that we are giving grace without repentance? I'm looking at a church and I looked up their beliefs, this was one of them. \"That God has given us all a measure of grace according to our gifts: Ephesians 4:7\u00a0\"But to each one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24136,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-free-gift\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":4},"title":"What is the “free gift?”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm having a little trouble with this passage and hope you can shed some light on it for me. Romans 5:12-21 talks about a \"free gift\". What is it? Who brought it? What does it do for us? Answer: \"But the free gift is not like the offense. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58574,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/on-offending-others\/","url_meta":{"origin":8192,"position":5},"title":"On Offending Others","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 29, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant Did you ever offend someone? Have you ever been offended? I am quite sure we can all answer \"Yes\" to both of those questions. And while it should never be our intent to offend others, we know it does happen. Sometimes it is done unintentionally, while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}