Silence The Critics

Has there ever been a time in your life when there was too much criticism being said to you and about you? How did it escalate to a near unbearable level that makes us want to run, hide, and lash out? We let it. We let it in, and we let it grow to a level that is out of our control. When it gets to that level, we turn into easily offended people. Some of us go through a lifetime of being offended because we never knew we let criticism get to us. We thought we could take it, we could handle it, and it didn’t bother us. But we couldn’t take it, and we did let it bother us. So, we shoved the offense deep into our sub-conscience and buried it. We became bitter and said the reason why was something else like old age, habit, I never knew how to let go, I have a right to be bitter, genetics, DNA, or say we’ve become a lot like our parents.  Up until now, we have not been able to arrive at the true reason why we are easily offended, bitter, and why we need coping mechanisms.  We let people criticize us in a harmful way and didn’t do anything about it. Now we need to ask for forgiveness from God and the person that harshly criticized us because we now hold something in our hearts against them. One might ask, “how is that fair, they treated me wrong in the first place and I was just minding my own business.” That could be very true, but where we went wrong at is we let it trouble and offend our hearts (John 14:1, 27), and we let it change our attitude toward them in a bitter way.

The bible specifically charges us to get rid of bitterness in every way (Ephesians 4:31-32), and we have to forgive those that do wrong to us so that God will forgive us (Mark 11:25-26). 

            There are 3 types of people that criticize us. People that desire to put us down because of our favor and righteousness with God. Sometimes to the point of persecution. People that do not intentionally desire to put us down but do because of their own insecurity.  And the third is our own self. Yes, that’s right. 

Sometimes we are our toughest critic and make it a daily habit. We put ourselves down more than others do. If you are putting yourself down so much that you want to give up on certain things and are considering making a bad decision because you need change in your life, then somewhere in your life you heard someone else criticize you and you held it in your heart and never let it go. Sometimes we hear a parent, mentor, coach, loved one, teacher, etc. criticize someone else and it puts a fear in us that we can’t ever cross that person. So, we put ourselves in a performance role whenever we are around that person. We put on an act of always being a good person because we are afraid of what they might say about us. So, we do anything we can, even if it means to put on an act or lie to them, just to keep them from criticizing us. If we continue to do this for years we will eventually put on an act and lie around everybody in everyday life (Ephesians 4:25). The bible says when we do this (lie) we let the devil in our life to steal from us, bother us, torment us, make the gospel in our life ineffective, and lose faith (Ephesians 4:27). But we can put a stop to the fear, lying, hatred, and the criticism because we have Christ!

            1 Peter 2:15 says, “For it is the will of God, that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.”  You will silence your critics by continuing to do good things. Many times, critics speak up because they are jealous of your success and the good that you do. Don’t give critics a reason to say anything about anything (Titus 2:8). However, that does not mean to stop the Gospel from flowing from you. It means, never get tired of doing right (2 Thessalonians 3:13; Galatians 6:9). Even though critics try to stop the Gospel, good works, and destroy our faith in the Lord, they will shut up when they see they can’t stop you or get to you. Let’s have the attitude that what they have to say (and that includes what we have to say to ourselves), is not even worth considering (Romans 8:18). It is not even worth our time to listen to it. Don’t even let it get us upset. Satan’s primary focus is to make us ineffective for the kingdom of God by sending criticism any way he can. When he knows you are listening, he will keep bringing it to you over and over to weaken you.  He will continue the criticism just to get you to sin, to act out on someone (Romans 12:17) or run away to a mess up. When that happens, just stop, praise God and confuse the devil (Psalms 40:3, and 96:1). God gave us the power to say no.  Say, “I’m not going to let this upset me.” Open your mouth and say hallelujah! The joy of the Lord is my strength (Nehemiah 8:10; Psalms 28:7-8). No weapon formed against you will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). What that means is critics can try all they want to take us down, but they will not succeed. They do not have the power to stop us, because greater is the One that is in us than the one that is in the world (1 John 4:4). That means any person doing the will of God has the power to stop and nullify anyone that is trying to stop the will of God because God is in us and not in them. Having faith in God triumphs over everything. Do you know who you serve? Do you know just how big your God really is? You have the victory in Christ. Ok then, let’s use His word and His power to silence the critics. 

God bless you

ByLisa