or secretly hiding waiting to attack you one day?
You may want to ask yourself the following
questions:
- Is this person someone who just spouts off the mouth everything ungodly so as to make me angry enough to sin?
- Is this critic someone who I can trust, yet when it comes to spiritual matters, he or she is the last person I think about talking to?
- Is the critic a person who may have a hidden plan to do harm against me, because I believe what I believe and tend to offend him or her with my faith?
If someone or
many come to mind while you ask yourself these questions, than you might
possibly have an enemy in your camp.
An
evil critic is anyone who opposes, hinders, suppresses, manipulates,
criticizes, ostracizes, or speaks evil of your belief system.
You might say, “Oh no, not my mom!
Oh no, not my man!
It couldn’t be my lady!
Don’t tell me, my son!”
A critic turned enemy can be anyone! Now, why would someone who supposedly loves or
likes you be so critical of your walk with the Lord whether to your face or
behind your back?
Because chances are,
you are doing some things that are disturbing their peace of mind, physical
location, and convicting their spirit.
Sounds similar to what Jesus did when talking to the Pharisees,
huh?
The more you talk about your
experiences believing in the one true God, the more the sinful critic will
provide his or her feedback whether on the phone, in-person, by email, text,
snail mail, or through someone else.
A
sinful critic may even show up on your social networking page or other websites
you frequent all-too-ready to leave a negative, demeaning or flippant
remark.
Some will say, “I am just giving
constructive feedback.”
Sure.
Jealous, wayward Christians, backsliders,
apostates, and the
godless are not interested in building up believers; rather they are more
interested in doing the following:
proving them wrong, making them look like fools, getting a good laugh or
tearing down one’s wholesome image.
Watch out Ms. Goody Two-Shoes or Mr. “I’m A Good Man!” the angry critic
is waiting for you to slip up.
In James
4:1-3 (NIV,) fights and quarrels occurred between
Christ’s followers due to
personal envy and discontent.
“What
causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that
battle within you?
You want something
but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You
quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
When you ask, you do not receive, because you
ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures.”
Deceptive critics will not share too much about themselves
whether online or offline, particularly with believers, for fear that God will
reveal flaws in their character.
Therefore, they will use criticism as a distraction to keep the focus
off of them an on to others. These critics don’t want godly followers to start
praying and guiding them toward Jesus, because many of them feel content
without him.
This is why a once very
talkative friend is not so social like she use to be since you met Jesus.
This is why some will become easily irritated
when you ask, “Would you like for me to pray with you?”
No one wants their flaws exposed even if
people already know what they are about.
A loving, sweet, wonderful unbelieving partner may not be so
attentive these days to his Christ following wife, because he doesn’t want to
hear nor talk about Jesus.
If she should
start a spiritual conversation, most assuredly the unsaved partner will start
creating a wall around his mind.
There
are plenty more examples, like this one, of difficult people who oppose the one
choosing to follow Jesus.
How long some
of the lost and confused welcome you, all depends on how much more they can
tolerate you and your Jesus before they distance themselves from you or push
you out of their lives with their mean words.
Sometimes God will expedite our exit from a
bad relationship
or friendship before we are ready, leaving relatives, friends and co-workers
surprised and offended that we no longer associate with them.
They may say, “What happened?
We use to be so close? You and your brother
were like peas in a pod.
What changed
that?”
You may respond, “I know, but God
is working things out in my life now.”
The critic, who doesn’t like this new you, might comment, “So he’s doing
something in you without me in your life, huh!?
I knew you were taking this God thing too far!
God wouldn’t tell you to cut me off!
You are out of your mind!”
As you learn more about the things of the Lord each day, you
may find that there are a number of challenges that you have to overcome
personally and professionally.
If you
aren’t mindful of who you are in Christ, the devil could set a trap for you
which may put you in a place of despair, resentment, frustration and more!
Unfortunately, it’s during these times when
we backslide.
Some of us will obtain something from a former lifestyle in order to make us feel better such as the
following:
a strong drink, cigarettes,
an ungodly man, an immoral woman, legal or illegal drugs, unhealthy food and
desserts, Satanic inspired media, overpriced items, a job that isn’t blessed by
God, or do something else to ease our pain at least temporarily.
However, the more and more we get the more
and more we want something else!
There
is simply no peace when you are unhappy with self and others.
We forget the Scripture sometimes, “Peace, I
leave you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you…”
(John 14:27).
When you are feeling most vulnerable, you may find yourself
connecting with relatives, friends and acquaintances that are angry,
hate-filled individuals, visiting sinful places, or using things that would
make your
mother question, “Who did I bring into this world?
I know that’s not my child.”
Satan brings problem people and things into
our lives, because they get us further and further away from God!
To allow the devil’s foolishness to enter our
spirits makes us nothing more than fools!
(Eccles. 10:3) says this about the fool, “Yea also, when he that is a fool
walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth
him, and he saith to every one
that
he
is a fool.”
Backsliding moments in the faith can happen at any
time!
You may be acting like Jesus in
the morning and the devil by the evening.
When this happens, most
backsliders, turned re-dedicated believers, will
go to God and repent, yet those so-called saintly types (also known as
Pharisees in the Bible) who have been observing fellow believers’ slow decline,
like the critics, won’t have any mercy on poor, wayward Christians.
Instead, they will beat repentant believers
up with insulting words about their “supposed” renewed faith whether to their
faces or behind their backs.
You quickly
learn that the church-going relative or friend you thought you were close to is
really nothing more than a foe!
Think for a minute about an old story of a wolf hiding in
sheep’s clothes.
The animal sits back
and pretends to be a sheep in order to get his next meal.
There are those around you, who pretend, or
suddenly have amnesia about their own mishaps, so that they can feed off of
your spiritual energy!
For instance,
they may say things like, “Pray for me.
Buy this for me.
Take me
here.
Do this for me.”
But when you point out some things that God
showed you in the spiritual realm about this person, they go into denial.
They don’t want to receive truth.
All they want is for you to be a servant to
them, end of discussion.
If you were to
call them out on their ugly behavior, they would most likely say, “You are
reading too much into what I’m doing…I would never hurt you…I know you are
trying to get your life together.
I am
so over that.
I don’t do that
anymore.”
But you may say to yourself,
“I don’t have much if anything to give and this person isn’t listening to what
I’m saying anyway!
I am struggling to
walk with God myself. Why would some
relatives and good friends want to use me?”
The answer to that question is quite simple, because they know they can
especially if you have a history of doing for them despite all the negativity
they have brought to you.
When you have fallen away from the Lord, you are weak and
the enemy is strong.
Wayward Believers
and hypocrites know this about their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ;
therefore, they will use you until they can’t use you anymore!
Nicholl McGuire is the author of
Know Your Enemy The Christian's Critic and
Face Your Foe on Confronting the Critics.
