Risng Above Criticism

Scripture

"Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me; all day long they press their attack. My slanderers pursue me all day long; many are attacking me in their pride. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life. On no account let them escape; in your anger, O God, bring down the nations." (Psalm 56:1-7)

Observation

If your going to do anything worthwhile in life, you're going to be criticized. We've all had times when somebody doesn't understand us, someone doesn't accept us - we can feel the sting of that rejection. Our job is not to try and win over all of our critics and try to prove that we are right and their wrong.

Our job is to run our race and focus on what God has put on our heart, and not allow the critics and pessimist's to control us.

I've discovered that because a lot of people have been hurt in their life, the only way they respond is to be critical, sometimes repeated critical, not allowing any possibilities for closures.
It's just their nature to spit out criticism, rejection and be a faultfinder.

Scripture shows us how we must trust in God. We've got to learn to shake off critisism and NOT allow the poison to get on the inside. Responding to criticism can be extremely difficult, especially as a leader. So let your actions do the talking. Word's aren't always necessary. Even Jesus when He was being criticized, when people were making false accusations - the scripture says, "He answered not a word."

In other words, He rose above it. Jesus attitude was, "my life will do the talking. Time will answer my critics."

Application

There's something about a person being talked about and criticized, but he just keeps on giving it his best. He keeps receiving God's blessing and favour. I shouldn't be spending my time trying to win my critics over. I need to spend that time improving my serve, improving my ability to love. If people are talking, being disrespectful, saying demeaning things about me, scripture tells me to focus on what God is doing in my own life and the "plans He has for me." Instead of letting it get me all upset, I must just keep loving. Work harder in loving, develop my skills, be the very best that I can be, for what God is doing in me. Don't worry about positioning or what people think. Fear God and focus on Him.

Prayer

Thank you Lord for showing me these scriptures today and how I need to handle my critics when the pressure grows around me. Help me Lord to focus on what I need to loving do for critics. Amen.

What Is a “Root of Bitterness”?

Hebrews 12:15

See 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.

Bitterness is usually associated with anger and grudges. But is that what it means in Hebrews 12:15? I don’t think so. Let’s ask a few questions. First of all, does “root of bitterness” mean that the root is bitterness (like block of wood)? Or does it mean that the root grows up into a plant and bears the bitter fruit? So “of bitterness” then would mean “giving rise to bitterness,” as in the phrase, “news of great joy.” Second, does “bitterness,” in Hebrews 12:15, mean “festering anger,” or does it mean “poisonous and foul”? Third, where did this image of a “root of bitterness” come from?

Let’s start with the last question. Answer: It came from Deuteronomy 29:18. “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit”. This background also helps us answer the first two questions: The root is not itself bitterness, but rather bears the fruit of bitterness. And the bitterness it bears is something poisonous. This bitter fruit may be festering anger, or it may be something else. The point seems to be that it is deadly.

The key question is, What is this root that causes deadly, bitter fruit to sprout in the church? The next verse in Deuteronomy 29 gives the surprising answer, and it fits perfectly with the book of Hebrews. Verse 18 ends: “… lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.” Then verse 19 begins by defining this root: “One who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This would lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike” .

What then is the root that brings forth the bitter fruit? It is a person who has a wrong view of eternal security. He feels secure when he is not secure. He says, “I shall be safe [secure], though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.” He misunderstands the covenant God makes. He thinks that because he is part of the covenant people, he is secure from God’s judgment.

This kind of presumption is what the book of Hebrews deals with repeatedly—professing Christians who think they are secure because of some past spiritual experience. The aim of Hebrews is to cure Christians of presumption and to cultivate earnest perseverance in the full assurance of faith and holiness. At least four times it warns us that we must not neglect our great salvation but rather be vigilant to fight the fight of faith every day lest we become hardened and fall away and prove that we had no share in Christ (2:3; 3:12–14; 6:4–7; 10:23–29).

This is also the very point of the context of the term “root of bitterness” in Hebrews 12:15. “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See 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” (12:14–15). This is a warning not to let the attitude of Deuteronomy 29:19 take root, “I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart” (rsv). It is a warning not to treat holiness lightly or to presume upon more grace.

Therefore a “root of bitterness” is a person or a doctrine in the church which encourages people to act presumptuously and treats salvation as an automatic thing that does not require a life of vigilance in the fight of faith and the pursuit of holiness. Such a person or a doctrine defiles many and can lead to the experience of Esau, who played fast and loose with his inheritance and could not repent in the end. “[Let] there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it [the repentance] with tears” (Hebrews 12:16–17). That would be bitter indeed. Don’t let a root grow up in the church or in your life that would spread such cavalier treatment of our great inheritance. Beware!

His Might and Mercy - the Fortress Over Forty Nine Years!

Psalm 59:16-17

But I will sing of thy might;
I will sing aloud of thy steadfast love in the morning.
For thou hast been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to thee,
for thou, O God, art my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love.

Notice what moved David so deeply to sing : the might and mercy of God which come together to make a fortress and refuge for his life. He says it twice. In verse 16 "I sing your might . . . I sing of your mercy." ("Steadfast love" is just another way of saying "mercy.") And the reason the might and mercy of God are so precious to David is that they come together to make a fortress—"For thou has been to me a fortress!"

Then he says the same thing again in verse 17 so we don't miss the point of his praise. First, he praises God his Strength, his might. ("O my Strength, I will sing praises to thee.") Then, in the last line he mentions God's mercy (" . . . the God who shows me steadfast love"), and between the two, he sets his eyes on the fortress ("for thou, O God, art my fortress").

So the contours and colours of these verses are clear: he is singing the might and mercy of God because they conspire to make fortress and refuge for his life.

I so identify with David in his song. That is the story of my life - simply His might and mercy coming together to be a fortress for my heaith, my ministry, my marriage, my children, my life all these forty nine years.

Today, I just am overwhelmed with gratitude. I sang aloud this morning:

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
 Morning by morning new mercies I see;
 All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
 Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me.

I am the product of His mercies. I don't deserve to be so blessed and so provided for and I am truly overwhelmed by the flood of His might and mercy that forms such a fortress over my life. And I am so assured of the future for His mercies never fail. They are still new every morning.

Thank you LORD!

The Cyclone Nargis

As the carnage from Cyclone Nargis moves toward 80,000 dead and beyond, there is a way to pray and act:

1. Pray for the followers of Christ in Myanmar:

• That they would be still and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10; 100:3).
• That they would be awakened from the illusion that this life is long or sure and will rise to respond to the cry of their nation (James 4:14).
• That they would be given a new vision of the supreme value of Christ who promises his followers that famine, nakedness, and death will not separate them from his love (Romans 8:35).
• That God would meet their needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus, so that they might have to give to those in need (Philippians 4:19; Ephesians 4:28).

  

2. Pray for the millions of unbelievers near the calamity and far from it:

• That they would see the helplessness of man before the Power that rules the world and fly to Christ who alone delivers from the final cyclone of God's wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
• That they would not respond like the people in Revelation (9:20; 16:9, 11) who did not repent at the devastation but cursed God.
• That they would hear the best news in all the world—not the news of health, wealth, and prosperity in this world, but the news that Christ became a curse for us (Galatians 3:13) so that in him we can be more than conquerors in every calamity of life (Romans 8:37).

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3. Pray for those of us who live in the seeming security and prosperity of our nation:

• That we would see what is about to break over us in due time—either collectively as God maychoose to removesthe hand of his providential restraint because of our pride and false securities, or individually as we ours can one day be whisked to the hospital, or wheeled to the nursing home, or carried to the funeral home (Hebrews 9:27).
• That millions would be made to see this and repent from the adultery of treasuring anything more than Christ (James 4:4).

4. Give money to help bring some relieve "since you also are in the body" (Hebrews 13:3).

Pain And Revelation

Psalm 119:71
It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I may learn Your statutes.

From 1660 to 1672, John Bunyan, the English Baptist preacher and author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was in the Bedford jail. He could have been released if he had agreed not to preach. He did not know which was worse, the pain of the conditions or the torment of freely choosing it in view of what it cost his wife and four children. His daughter, Mary, was blind. She was ten when he was put in jail in 1660.

The parting with my Wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the Flesh from my bones … not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great Mercies, but also because I … often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor Family was like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides; Oh the thoughts of the hardship I thought my Blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces. (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners [Hertfordshire: Evangelical Press, 1978], 123)

But this broken Bunyan was seeing treasures in the Word of God because of this suffering that he would probably not have seen any other way. He was discovering the meaning of Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.”

I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now [in prison]. The Scriptures that I saw nothing in before are made in this place to shine upon me. Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen him and felt him indeed.… I have seen [such things] here that I am persuaded I shall never while in this world be able to express.… Being very tender of me, [God] hath not suffered me to be molested, but would with one scripture and another strengthen me against all; insomuch that I have often said, were it lawful I could pray for greater trouble for the greater comfort’s sake. (Grace Abounding, 123)

In other words, one of God’s gifts to us in suffering is that we are granted to see and experience depths of his Word that a life of ease would never yield.

Martin Luther had discovered the same “method” of seeing God in his Word. He said there are three rules for understanding Scripture: praying, meditating, and suffering. The trials, he said, are supremely valuable: They “teach you not only to know and understand but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God’s Word is: It is wisdom supreme.”

I have known this to be so true in the small experiences of my life. Disappointment, loss, pain, and fear send me deeper than ever into God and his Word. Clouds of trifling are blown away, and the glory of unseen things shines in the heart’s eye.

Let Bunyan and Luther encourage us to lean on God’s Word in times of affliction as never before. I know that there are seasons when we cannot think or read, the pain is so great. But God grants spaces of some relief between these terrible times. Turn your gaze on the Word and prove the truth of Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.”