Saturday, June 11, 2011

Know When to be Silent

“….. Jesus was silent and made no reply….”  Mark 14:61   NLT



We must not practice the art of self defense.   We should take Jesus as our example in this.

When He was reviled, He did not revile in return, but rather committed Himself to His Father.  (I Peter 2:23)   We must not answer all of our critics.

For one thing, there are too many of them and to satisfy them it would take all of our time and energy.   For another thing, our critics may unwittingly be our friends.  Like a mirror, they show us our faults and short comings that our blinded eyes could not see otherwise.

We can respond to critics with either thankfulness or silence.  Thankfulness when they point out areas that may need improvement and silence when the criticism is malicious and spoken out of jealousy.

Criticism should move us to prayer and to the place of surrendering the critic into God’s hands.   Pray that if the criticism is fair, we will accept it and if not, that God will defend us.

We must be careful not to line up supporters when under attack. It is tempting and easy to take sides, to gather friends and to make the criticism develop into an issue where battle lines are drawn.   To do that means we refuse to admit we need correction or to refuse the benefit of criticism. 

It also, creates an endless cycle of bickering and back-stabbing that only caters to pride and egos.   When this happens a quarrel develops which means someone has forgotten to say, “Forgive me!”

Jesus is our perfect example on how to handle criticism because He went to the cross with a pure conscience.  We are instructed to “keep a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander”.  I Peter 3:16 NIV

“Selfish people cause trouble,

but you will live a full life

if you trust the LORD”.    Prov. 28:25  CEV

No comments:

Post a Comment