Attacking AnxietySýnishorn

Not even Academy Award–winning actors can perform their way out of criticism. Whether it comes from you or others, it’s inevitable. In fact, here’s a simple rule of thumb: the greater the influence, the greater the criticism. For some reason (I won’t pretend to understand), the more you try to build people up, the more critics will try to tear you down.

Fortunately, the apostle Paul understood this tension. . . .

In his letter to his friends in Galatia, we find out one of the causes of that pain was because he was listening to the wrong voices. Paul had plenty of critics, and early on he fell into the trap of giving them too much real estate in his mind. So in the first chapter he said, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).

According to Paul, we can either spend our time performing for our critics and giving them a certain amount of control over our lives or spend our time serving Christ—but we can’t do both. So the only way I can live the kind of life that God has in store for me and walk in the calling God has for my life is to focus on what Christ says instead of the critics.

The best part about serving Christ instead of performing for our critics is that he already made a way for us to be perfect. As the writer of Hebrews said, “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:14).

Critics say perform.

Christ says perfected.

We won’t ever be able to perform our way out of criticism, but we don’t have to. Christ already did that for us by going to the cross to pay the price for our sins!

We are all in the process of “being made holy,” and along the way we are going to have good days and bad days. But according to Scripture, Christ already perfected us, which means we get to stop performing!

Prayer

Father, thank you for loving me despite my imperfections. Please walk with me as I strive to be holy like you. Amen.