How do we offend God?

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simpleas

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The question is in the title. I’m curious how people understand this, to be honest if I was asked by someone, how does a certain action or thought offend God, I wouldn’t have a convincing answer.

Thanks. 🙂
 
We are turning away from the one who loves us the most.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.
 
By offend we mean that we offend God’s law- we commit offenses. It is not that God needs anything from us. He is all whole, perfect, and complete. But, we commit an offense against His law which moves us further away from Him.
 
I used to wonder about this. The answer has something to do with violating his justice.
 
WE offend God when we harden our hearts to
His love. And when we fail to love our bros. and
sisters in Christ, it means we are denying His
grace in our lives.
“Blessed is he who fears always,
BUT he who hardens his heart
will fall into calamity” Prov 28:14
If we feared God more, maybe it
KEEPS US FROM hardening our
hearts and refusing His love and
refusing to GIVE love to others.
After all, satan is still actively seeking
our ruin, hardened hearts are fertile
ground for weeds!
 
simpleas said:
The question is in the title. I’m curious how people understand this, to be honest if I was asked by someone, how does a certain action or thought offend God, I wouldn’t have a convincing answer.

Thanks. 🙂
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A great question.

I take my view from the fact that God is Love (1 John 4:7-8) and that all of the law and prophets are based on Love (Mt 22:36-40); that Jesus gave us a single command - to Love one another (John 13:34-35)

So we offend God when we refuse to Love Him above all things and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
We also offend Him by not taking proper care of ourselves, physically and spiritually, and taking care of those around us.
We offend Him when we do not use our gifts and our blessings properly.

Now - just to be clear…we offend when we refuse to do something we know we should do. I think that there are many times when we disappoint our Lord more than we offend Him.

Peace
James
 
Thanks for your replies.

I once asked myself and a priest, “if we love God so much, why do we sin”
Its like I think we say one thing and do the complete other in many areas of our lives, but we are not to think of it as we are just human, we must think that we in some way offend our great creator, who doesn’t need anything from us, only our love.

The priest didn’t answer by the way, he just said we could talk about sin for hours, maybe another time! And thats fine, I know priests haven’t got hours to explain.

It is interesting to hear posters replies, I think just because we are told something like that, its important to know and understand, (hopefully) how it actually happens.
 
God is…
  1. Love and Goodness (“God is charity”)
  2. Being Itself (“I AM”)
  3. Light ("… in Him there is no darkness…"
  4. Truth ("… the way, and the truth…")
Sin, on the other hand, consists in a turning away from God; it does not proceed from Him, and it does not return to Him as its final end. Sin, therefore, is disordered, evil, false, dark and without substance; it lacks being, just as darkness lacks being or substance (as it is a mere absence). These, of course, are great mysteries, and I could not possibly explain these things in great depth.

Interestingly, Our Lord said to St. Teresa of Avila that sin is nothing but a lie.

“It is love that makes reparation, because that which offends God in sin is the absence of love.” (Jesus to Sr. Mary of the Holy Trinity)
 
simpleas said:
I once asked myself and a priest, “if we love God so much, why do we sin”?
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I plucked this from your reply above because when I read it I thought of my dear wife and how much I loved her and yet - how I know I must have irritated her in different ways.
One - rather small example was that she insisted on ironing my shirts…but I would always forget to undo the buttons on the shirt collars…she asked and asked…but I kept doing it…😊
I finally stopped buttoning them in the first place…

I know this is sort of a silly example, and I don’t know why that was the one that came to me…

I guess the point is that even when we love someone with all of our heart, we still will do things - without intending to - that irritate, or upset, or offend…
Thank God for being so forgiving to us…

Peace
James
 
simpleas said:
I once asked myself and a priest, “if we love God so much, why do we sin”
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I think we can understand this in simple human terms. I love my parents, but I have disobeyed them. Usually this was because:
  1. I knew better. 😃
  2. I was selfish.
  3. I was immature.
    I loved them, but I hurt our relationship at those times. I had chosen to go against them and to distance myself from their care and love.
I love my husband, but I am occasionally impatient, selfish, and quick-tempered. But we will be married for 32 happy years in November.

We love as we can, but our love is always incomplete and we are always imperfect. It is not only possible to love and to sin, it is, I’m afraid, far too common.
 
Thank you JRKH and Chefmomster2 for your examples.

I totally understand how we as humans can offend each other, it’s what sort of way would God be feeling when we offend him. Does God have our sort of human emotions? I can understand how Christ when in human form would have felt our human way of emotions, but this sort of human feeling wouldn’t still continue or else Christ would be feeling pain, or offence every time a person sins?
 
simpleas said:
Thank you JRKH and Chefmomster2 for your examples.

I totally understand how we as humans can offend each other, it’s what sort of way would God be feeling when we offend him. Does God have our sort of human emotions? I can understand how Christ when in human form would have felt our human way of emotions, but this sort of human feeling wouldn’t still continue or else Christ would be feeling pain, or offence every time a person sins?
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Yes…and No.

If you consider the Person Jesus, then in his full human nature He would feel emotions just as we do. However, if we are speaking of the God of Divinity, then it is quite different.

God is unchanging and unchangable. He is perfect and complete. While we can change another person by hurting them causing them to feel anger, pain, or sadness or other negative emotions, it is impossible to change God. God likewise has no body. He does not cry, blush, tremble, or sulk.

God is about relationship. Through our free will we make choices and these choices do not change God, but rather our relationship with Him. When we commit an offense against God’s will, when we have broken our relationship we say we have offended Him.

Think of “offending” not as hurting His feelings, but of COMMITTING AN OFFENSE.
 
chefmomster2 said:
Yes…and No.

If you consider the Person Jesus, then in his full human nature He would feel emotions just as we do. However, if we are speaking of the God of Divinity, then it is quite different.

God is unchanging and unchangable. He is perfect and complete. While we can change another person by hurting them causing them to feel anger, pain, or sadness or other negative emotions, it is impossible to change God. God likewise has no body. He does not cry, blush, tremble, or sulk.

God is about relationship. Through our free will we make choices and these choices do not change God, but rather our relationship with Him. When we commit an offense against God’s will, when we have broken our relationship we say we have offended Him.

Think of “offending” not as hurting His feelings, but of COMMITTING AN OFFENSE.
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Thanks.
I agree God does not change, it is us humans that change through generations.

Ok take this little part of the prayers/mediations we say at stations of the cross :

*Prayer
My Jesus, it was not Pilate, it was my sins that condemned You to die. I beg You, by the merits of this sorrowful journey, to assist my soul in its journey toward eternity.

I love You, Jesus, my love above all things; I repent with my whole heart for having offended You. Never permit me to separate myself from You again. Grant that I may love You always, and then do with me what You will.

1 of 14
Station 1: Jesus is Condemned To Death
*

The first part is alittle hard to accept, as us being born after Christs death, I’m alittle mixed up on how I condemned Christ to death. But thats another question for another thread…

So when we pray I repent with my whole heart for having offended You. What this means is we are sorry for breaking Gods law, not that we offend God literally?

Thanks.
 
simpleas said:
So when we pray I repent with my whole heart for having offended You. What this means is we are sorry for breaking Gods law, not that we offend God literally?

Thanks.
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That is my understanding of it. We are apologizing for having rejected God’s love. 🙂
 
by our sins our sin not only removes us from God but offends him since God is sinless he cannot abide to be near sin
 
Stillsosola said:
by our sins our sin not only removes us from God but offends him since God is sinless he cannot abide to be near sin
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This is not accurate.
  1. Venial sin damages our relationship with God but does not entirely remove us from a state of grace.
  2. Mortal sin removes us from God’s grace…
  3. Jesus, being God incarnate, was sinless and yet was “near sin” every day as he dealt with imperfect and sinful people of the time.
God loves us and stays near us even in our sin. If He did not, how could we ever receive His grace?

Peace
James
 
Stillsosola said:
by our sins our sin not only removes us from God but offends him since God is sinless he cannot abide to be near sin
Click to expand...
Jesus ate and drank with sinners, he never seemed to be disgusted or offended by them, he helped them seek what they needed to turn their life around.
He even says somewhere they would enter the kingdom before some who thought they were good and righteous, because they (sinners) could admit they were not perfect, I think this is what he was trying to show us…

🙂
 
simpleas said:
Jesus ate and drank with sinners, he never seemed to be disgusted or offended by them, he helped them seek what they needed to turn their life around.
He even says somewhere they would enter the kingdom before some who thought they were good and righteous, because they (sinners) could admit they were not perfect, I think this is what he was trying to show us…

🙂
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👍
 
All’s I know is that being selfish leads to serious sin.
We are to humble ourselves before God.
Why are we here?
Catholics have the best answer to that.
The thing is, offending God is nasty behavior one will regret through the rest of her life and forever.
I should hope God always had feelings but for sure at the incarnation of Lord, Master, Brother JESUS of Mother Mary.
Something like sin can offend life. It’s a threat. It will not stand.
St. Michael pray for us.
Some of us poor sinners don’t know how deep we are digging our graves.
Jesus invites us into the furnace of His Sacred Heart.
Immaculata teach us more on repentance, reparation and virtue.
Can you imagine being a Christian in any of the years of the first three centuries?
They were treated worse than the modern law would treat a guilty serial killer.
If they were honest to themselves they knew they were to remain holy and innocently slaughtered for their God who died that they may live eternal.
It’s always something 🙂
 
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