Earlier on in the week I mentioned that it is too costly for you to take offense. This comment may have slipped by you, so today I want to bring it back to the fore.

I ask that you please have an open heart towards this for the sake of anything you hold dear to you.

In the past three weeks, I have been learning about love and how important a role it plays in life. One important point that I learnt is that offense is a mighty tool in the hands of satan. You see, Love is to God, what offense is to the devil.

The devil hates us humans because he knows how precious we are to God. He sees how much of Him we are and since He knows He can't hurt God, he uses us to get to Him. I'll give you an example. Imagine (I actually need you to imagine), you were eating this delicious meal and saved this chicken piece for last to enjoy to your utmost satisfaction. Imagine that all of a sudden, someone comes in and grabs this chicken piece right in front of you and eats it. I can't imagine what your reaction to this would be but your anger is likely to know no bounds because that chicken was very dear to you. We are definitely, dearer to God than a piece of chicken. So, having this knowledge encourages the devil to do what he does.

Because the devil is offended that he got kicked out of heaven, he tries to plant his seed of offense into us humans so that we can multiply his plantation. God on the other hand, plants love into us, so we can multiply his Kingdom (Romans 5:5).

It really then is just a question of whose seed are we multiplying? When we choose to act in certain ways, whose crops are we cultivating?

There's this American song I like that goes "You've gotta serve somebody....it maybe the devil, it may be the Lord but you've got to serve somebody." There really is no Switzerland in this matter. You are either propagating love or propagating hate. So it really is left to you what type of fruit you want to eat of.

God said, we cannot claim to love Him, if we do not love those around us. What it means is that, if we say we are His children and are born of Him, then we would have His character traits which is love and we would love those He has put around us.

I used to think I loved people. Really, I did. However, I got a bigger understanding of what loving someone else is.You see it is easy to love people that love us. When people are nice to us, it is easy for us to be nice in return. But think of this, even children do not find it hard to behave in this way, so what makes us different from a child.

Love is a choice. It is not a feeling. It is choosing to act rightly to someone even when they treat us badly. It is restraining our flesh especially when revenge is our easiest retort.

Now, we could go the other way. The way of offense and start acting out thinking that we are doing what is best to protect ourselves but, we really are offended and at that time, we are SERVING the devil.

What you didn't know about love is this. The Bible says, love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10). So if you are actually walking in love, you have fulfilled the law (and catch this) and that means that you would be qualified for all the blessings of the law. However, if you choose to walk in offense, then you would be qualified for the causes of the law.

This is the real truth.

The choice lies in your hands. Joshua told the children of Israel in Deut 30: 19: