It’s a very difficult discipline but we must work hard at not being personally affected by criticism.
Criticism will always be a fact of life – for any leader. We simply cannot please everyone all the time. And many people (including very good ones) make their displeasure known. They have no idea about the multitude of other pressures the leader carries at the time. And they genuinely don’t realize the effect their words might have on the leader.
It is this that ends up derailing many leaders. They otherwise would have done really well, but they get discouraged and demotivated by the criticism. Years ago, I read that it only takes six (critical) people to get a pastor to leave – to leave! Even with all the tremendous affirmation and support the leaders get at some churches, there will still be criticism.
So we need to continually draw near to God. Allowing Him to crucify our own desires to look good, to be understood, to be treated justly, to be liked, to be vindicated, etc. etc.
It’s a deeper and deeper place of brokenness that we need to find. A deeper place of dependency on Him. A deeper place of union with Christ.
This is not easy and does not come naturally to any of us. I once asked a very old (and very deep) man of God, “Do you ever get to the place where people’s criticisms and attacks no longer trouble you?” His sober answer was, “No.”
But, in Him we can find encouragement and safety. In Him we can find life and peace. So that is where we must continually look. Coming apart from the busyness of the ministry work to look at Him and rest in His Presence. This is our hope and our path of longevity in serving the people of God – in Him. Only in Him.
Are we to love God (Matt. 22:37) or fear Him (1 Pet. 2:17)?
Is the Godhead three or one? Is Jesus Christ fully God or fully man? Is God sovereign or is man morally responsible? Does God love the world or is He its eternal Judge? There are many such apparent contradictions in the Bible. Clearly, these are not contradictions to God, since He states both truths frequently with no trace of dilemma. In all such apparent contradictions we must hold to both at the same time.
A fear of God that does not truly love Him will result in a life of harsh condemnation and legalism. A love for God that does not truly fear Him will result in a wishy-washy life driven by unstable, emotional sentimentalism and spiritual self-centeredness.
Just as, in a single moment, we must fully embrace the sovereignty of God and the genuine moral responsibility of man, so we must, at the same time, deeply fear God and deeply love Him.
It is our Greek (Western) tendency that pressures us to try to resolve such apparent contradictions, by choosing one side and then subverting the other to it. But to do so necessarily means the loss of both truths. The Hebrew mind had no such artificial limitations; he fully feared God and fully loved Him – at the same time.
And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good? (Deut. 10:12-13)
…The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. (John 6:63)
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Heb. 4:12)
…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, (Eph. 5:25-26)
The Word of God is alive and powerful. The Scriptures are not only a source of accurate and reliable information – they themselves have the power to transform lives! When we are in the Word and the Word is in us, our lives are changed.
Books that are written about the Word of God are certainly useful (cf. Acts 8:26-35) – especially as they point us to the Word and help us understand it. But they do not have the same direct power as the Word of God; in fact, they have considerably less power.
Books that are written about books that are written about the Word have even less power. In a very subtle way, all in the name of scholarship, we get further and further away from life. The further away from the Word we get, the less the transformational power. We can still see bits and pieces of the Word – some vague reflections of Scripture – but we end up with our minds so cluttered with other things, and we lose the simple connection with the Word of life.1 Then we wonder: Where is the power of God? Where is the presence of God? Where is the life-transforming truth? We knew it once but now it has been lost in the muddle of human tradition, in man’s debates about man’s debates. Read more…
What else is the goal of theological education than to bring us closer to the Lord our God so that we may be more faithful to the great commandment to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37)? Seminaries and divinity schools must lead theology students into an ever-growing communion with God, with each other, and with their fellow human beings. Theological education is meant to form our whole person toward an increasing conformity with the mind of Christ so that our way of praying and our way of believing will be one.
But is this what takes place? Often it seems that we who study or teach theology find ourselves entangled in such a complex network of discussions, debates, and arguments about God and “God-issues” that a simple conversation with God or a simple presence to God has become practically impossible. Our heightened verbal ability, which enables us to make many distinctions, has sometimes become a poor substitute for a single-minded commitment to the Word who is life. If there is a crisis in theological education, it is first and foremost a crisis of the word. This is not to say that critical intellectual work and the subtle distinctions it requires have no place in theological training. But when our words are no longer a reflection of the divine Word in and through whom the world has been created and redeemed, they lose their grounding and become as seductive and misleading as the words used to sell Geritol.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart
The following was written by one of our Asian team.
I recently led a prayer time for our local church’s leaders. We read Acts 9:32 through the end of chapter 10. God took in me a direction, “Look for what God did and what men did in this passage.” So that’s the question I gave every one for 15 minutes of team reflection.
During the reflection, I saw how God initiated all the miracles, how He convicts people’s heart of His salvation, how He gives His servants ministry opportunities, and how He renews Peter’s mind and advanced His kingdom through his obedience.
While what men did was so little and so simple – they responded to God in simple faith, they grasped the opportunities God gave them, they declared the name of Jesus in boldness, and they obeyed God’s instruction in readiness. Read more…
Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. (Ps. 146:3-4)
On that very day, at that hour, in the moment of death their plans come to nothing. Nothing. This is the moment of reality.
All they have lived for, all they have built, all they have given their energy for – comes to nothing. All the power, the wealth, the fame, the success – comes to nothing. In the moment of death.
So do not put your trust in them or in the things they trust in. Instead live for God – live for eternity. One day you will face this same day, this same moment of reality.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them – the LORD, who remains faithful forever. (Ps. 146:5-6)
Trust the Lord Jesus! He’s the true God, the only God. Fear Him. Don’t give your life for temporal fame and fortune. Live for Him! He is faithful forever. And what is done in Him lasts forever. Live every day, every hour, every moment, with this in your mind.
It is carelessly assumed by most persons that when a preacher pronounces a message of truth and his words fall upon the ears of his listeners there has been a bona fide act of hearing on their part. They are assumed to have been instructed because they have listened to the Word of God. But it does not follow.
Read more…
