Compliments and criticisms are a part of life. How you handle them affects how you grow. Your life here, even your eternity, can be changed by what you do about what others say about you.
If we listen to hurtful and negative comments about ourselves and hold them in our hearts as if they define us, we often make those gibes a reality in our lives. On the other hand, if we accept well-meant compliments or flattery and construct our view of ourselves from them, without assessing their validity, we will have an unreal picture of ourselves that will feed our vanity and hamper our growth.
How should we react to how others react to us?
The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
And a man is valued by what others say of him.
(Proverbs 27:21, Unless otherwise stated: Scripture is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Used by permission. All rights reserved)
A refining pot and furnace are meant to heat the ore that contains valuable materials until the impurities are burned out. The process is uncomfortable, but the outcome is precious. Imagine a furnace that burned all the desired metal out of an object and left the impurities. If we aren’t careful, that is how we process what people say to, or about, us. If we seek our value from their thoughts, rather than value what God thinks, we will tend to be people pleasers or self-servers.
What should we do with anything someone might say, good or bad, about what we do?
Take it and burn it.
Only keep what survives the fire in your heart.
It doesn’t matter if the words are nice or mean, complimentary or critical. Keep what is worthwhile and allow the bad to evaporate into the atmosphere.
The fire you use in the furnace of your heart must be the Scriptures.
“Test all things; hold fast what is good”
(1 Thess 5:21).
We will find that in the sweetest of flatteries, there are useless elements that need to be let go. Conversely, the most scathing criticisms can contain a nugget of gold, but we need to purge the dross.
“Let another man praise you,
and not your own mouth;
A stranger, and not your own lips. ...
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
(Prov 27:2, 6)
“But ‘he who glories, let him glory in the LORD.’
For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.”
(2 Cor 10:17-18)
What are some thoughts about yourself that you need to burn today?
Van
