How Thick Is Your Skin?

How thick is your skin? I know, there’s a lot of talk about victims and snowflakes. But I’m not writing this post for you to point fingers.

Do you have thin skin? When was the last time you were offended? How often does that happen? How careful do people have to be around you? Are they walking on eggshells, afraid you’ll either lash out or clam up?

I tell our staff often, “We need to be soft-hearted but thick-skinned.” Often, too many people are thin-skinned and hard-hearted.

There is no excuse for being offensive. Proverbs 18:19 says, “An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city” (NLT). Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is kind and is not rude. Some Christians are just plain offensive, and that’s terrible.

But being offensive and being offendable come from the same root: self. Offensive people care little for the feelings of others. Offended people care too much about their own feelings. Both are the result of pride. Both keep us from representing Jesus well to those around us.

Jesus simply would not be offended. He was spit on, mocked, beaten, betrayed and abandoned, but He practiced what He preached. He loved His enemies and His offending friends. He remained unoffendable. His response was forgiveness.

I heard the story of a man who went to his former business partner’s funeral. He approached the casket and said, “You are a liar and a thief. I hated you when you were alive and I’m glad you’re dead.”

What happened? Nothing. The dead guy did nothing. Because he was dead! Dead people do not get offended.

Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (NIV).

Paul was unoffendable because his sinful self was dead and his new life was the life of Jesus. Christians are to be dead to their offendable self and have the living unoffendable Jesus living through them.

If we are truly living for the glory of God (and not our own), there is little that will offend us.

Imagine how that would that change your family, your workplace, your friendship circles, if you no longer were offended…even by offensive people. How would things change if Jesus’ response to people became our own? And just imagine the good that would do for our witness.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 NKJV).