The Debilitating power of self-criticism.

I don’t know about you but my greatest external pressure is not really external but rather seems to be internal.  Jesus said Matt. 16:33 “In this world you will have tribulation…” there is not a day without difficulty…without some sort of trouble.  Some are worse than others and some more difficult than others.  There are days when the power of “Christ in us…” exerts more influence through us on to the constant tide of trouble that surges at the retaining wall of the grace of God in our lives namely “our righteousness that is hidden Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21) those are the days when the SON pushes back the clouds and the heat of Christ’ presence warms our hearts.  Life is grand on those days.

                The problem is that the negative influence that is from without (Sin, The World, the flesh & the Devil) still has roots within – even though I have been extracted from the soil of the world and have “sat down at the right hand of God…” remnants of the old man, that will not be dealt with until the breath from my lungs is rung out by the chilling hand of death. 

Where does this invisible nemesis come from?  The Voice…the “accuser of the breather”?  or my own heart?

One of my favorite passages that really encourages me is found in 1 John Chapter 3 – You know how we are so familiar with passages that we read them and fail to get anything other than what has been revealed at a former time?  I have been reading from Eugene Patterson’s version (THE MESSAGE) how refreshing to have old truth revealed in a fresh new way.  It encourages the heart once again as it did the first time you had it but with greater appreciation.  (kind of like, being over in a foreign country and eating all the foreign food, and the first thing you do when you get state side is eat a big greasy cheese burger with fries and a coke)  God again shows me my great sin is calling “unclean the thing that He has cleansed” namely ME!  Self-criticism.  What a slap in the face of the Almighty!  It robs me of the living power of Christ in me.  Rob’s be of the great truth also found in the book of 1 John “Greater is He that is in me, than He that is in the world”

Here is the passage from Patterson’s version: 1 John 3:18-24

18-20My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

 21-24And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

Let us love each other, and most importantly love ourselves and the persons we are becoming in Christ Jesus.

David.