A Very Small Thing

Laying hold of eternal life (1Ti 6:19) is more than finding justification, it’s being transformed by gospel truth.

One of these basic truths is that God loves each one of us enough to become our sin (2Co 5:21); He’s willing to lay down His life to rescue a single human soul. He thus places infinite value on each one of us.

In light of JEHOVAH’s valuing of us, for us to value the opinions of others above His, to be moved to feel more or less significant or treasured in how others treat us, is to effectively discount and dismiss God’s valuing of us, to trade in His estimation for Man’s … which must be immensely offensive and insulting to Him, our enmity towards the Godhead constantly bleeding through. (Ro 8:7)

We do this in countless ways as we react to the opinions of others; in being threatened and intimidated by their disapproval, and basking in their praise … we’re treating them as idols (1Jn 5:21), as if they’re God.

It isn’t that the discernment of others shouldn’t matter at all; their judgments, observations, complaints and encouragements are a rich source of wisdom in our pursuit of holiness — others can often see our faults, weaknesses and strengths much more easily than we can. It’s that we must keep this all in perspective; it’s a very small thing (1Co 4:3), incidental, trinkets among gems; all else is the fear of man. (Pr 29:25)

Even in something as small as winning or losing a game or contest, do we feel better or worse about ourselves either way? What does this really look like when we’re loving one another as ourselves, and God with all our hearts?

The pride of life (1Jn 2:16) is valuing, or even disvaluing ourselves, apart from God (Ja 4:10); thinking we can judge human worth or significance in any way on our own. (Mt 7:1) It’s an abomination to God (Lk 16:15), and seems as natural as breathing. (Job 15:16)

If the king is a personal friend, whom I can call and chat with on a whim, and is pleased with me, what does it matter if others are, or aren’t? How much more so with the King of glory, ought we to focus solely on hearing Him say, “Well done!” (Mt 25:23)

articles    blog

2 thoughts on “A Very Small Thing”

Leave a Reply to Ben Seltmann Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.