Prayer Requests for a Critical Heart
A critical spirit will not survive where humility is thriving. If we want to root out critical speech and thoughts, we must ask God to give us humble hearts. We must see ourselves as finite creatures and God as the only truly omniscient One. We must surrender our plans, ideas, strategies, and advice to the Father and trust His sovereign providence to make things right—or to leave them alone—for His glory.
I promise I’m not critical. I just happen to know how to do things the right way, and I want to use my gift of correct-ness to help others. Is that so bad? Actually, it is. And, actually, I am critical.
From grammatical errors in the book I’m reading to what songs we should sing (or not sing) in church to how my husband chooses to do the dishes (yes, he does the dishes, and I’m still critical!), I often have a critical heart. My heart loves to be right and has firm opinions what exactly that looks like in almost any circumstance in which I find myself. I hope that maybe you can identify at least a little bit.
A critical heart bears fruit like complaining, gossiping, authority-questioning, arrogance, and other nasty traits. While I see this first and foremost in my own heart, I also see it in society at large. National news sites teem with clickbait headlines lambasting political figures and celebrities; social media overflows with articles, tweets, posts, and memes aimed at criticizing one foible or another. Late-night comedy and satirical sketch shows exist in order to be critical for the sake of comedy.
Let’s face it. We love to be critical.
A heart that rejoices in finding fault in others may align with contemporary culture’s values, but it falls short of the character of Christ. As followers of Jesus, we must fight our sinful critical flesh and renew our minds to be transformed into the image of our Savior. This change can happen because we are already new creatures in Him; the old has gone, and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17). Not only that, but we’ve been indwelt with the Holy Spirit, so we do not fight alone. But fight we must. And the first place we must “wage war against our fleshly passions” (1 Pet. 2:11) is on our knees before the throne of grace. After we finish, we take up the sword and go about our day fighting to put our flesh to death (Col. 3:5); but first, we must seek the aid of the God who fights for us (Deut. 3:22).
If, like me, you want to crucify your critical heart, here are four requests to bring to God and traits to put on in that fight. If you want to remember them, just memorize Colossians 3:12.
Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, (Col 3:12)
Request #1: “Give me a heart of compassion.”
According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, compassion means “a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick, hungry, in trouble, etc.”1 At first glance, perhaps this definition seems far from the topic of being critical, but let’s take a deeper look.
When I’m being critical of someone else, I’m thinking chiefly of myself (and how I’m right). I may deceive myself into thinking that I’ve got the greater good of the family or church or organization at heart, but, in reality, I’m concerned about my own interests. Just ask a football fan on any given Monday morning between September and January. If their team lost, they will have plenty of “constructive criticism” for the coach, quarterback, and most of all, the officials. Are they concerned with the individuals whom they’re critiquing? Or are they angry that their Sunday was ruined by a lopsided score?
A critical heart says, “I can do better” and doesn’t care about the heart of the person being attacked, criticized, or maligned. A critical heart is totally outcome-driven—an outcome that pleases me.
On the other hand, a compassionate heart wants to reach out to a hurting individual. A compassionate heart recognizes that the person being criticized is an image-bearer of the living God and an eternal soul with an eternal destiny that may hang in the balance. In short, a compassionate person looks beyond the outcome and sees the person. Sounds a lot like Christ, doesn’t it?
Christ didn’t avoid Samaria like other “good Jews”; He went right on through so He could talk with a woman at Jacob’s Well (John 4). He knew that the Sabbath was made for people, and not the other way around (Mark 2:27). He told Martha she was worried about too many things as she bustled about the house making sure everything was perfect and commended Mary for sitting at His feet (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus cared about people, not outcomes.
Lord,
Give me heart of compassion. Forgive me for critical thoughts and words. I have been too concerned with the outcome of a situation and forgotten about people.
-
Denying the Truth
John distinguishes truth and falsehood, what proceeds from the mouth of God and what is purported to be truth but is a lie. That’s why John will later urge us to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). How do we test the spirits? How do know truth? By holding fast to the revealed word of God, which is truth (John 17:14-19).
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either (1 John 2:23, NKJV).
What comes to mind when you think of antichrist? Perhaps a mighty demonic being or a rival to the throne of Jesus, such as described by Paul to the Thessalonians: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:9–10).
John, however, has spoken to us of many antichrists. Yet whether singular or plural, they are all cut from the same cloth and present us with the same challenge in our walk with Christ and work for Him in this world. That challenge has to do with love of the truth and acting upon it. At stake are matters of life and death.
John addresses believers as truth-holders. “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21).
Read More
Related Posts: -
Struggling with Sexual Sin? Marriage Won’t Fix That
Marital sex is not the solution to a sin problem. For the sake of your relationship with God first and foremost, and secondly your relationship with your spouse, you must address the problem of sexual temptation. Go to God in repentance. Seek council from your church elders. Leave all you know to be sinful and run to the cross of Christ. Only that can save you. Sex and marriage were never meant to be your saviour.
Marriage will not fix your sexual sin problem. I’m stating that at the outset. Wherever we go from here you can return to this first sentence and be clear on what I am and I’m not saying. Let me repeat it: marriage will not fix your sexual sin problem.
Sexual Sin Distorts A Very Good Thing
In a previous article I encouraged young people to get married. In particular, I exhorted them against using education as an excuse for not getting married. This was in light of the sexual drive that God has built into each and every one of us. For this sexual drive has most young people burning with passion, choosing to exercise it everywhere but in God’s intended place: marriage.
At this point, I need to make a very important distinction, which might have been missed while reading my previous article. This distinction is between sexual temptation and sexual desire. The two are similar, even related. But they aren’t identical. Sexual desire is the natural drive that God put in the man and the woman for physical intimacy. It includes sex, but is about much more. Yet God provides one location for the expression of sexual desire: within marriage, between one man and one woman.
Sexual temptation, on the other hand, seeks pleasure outside the bounds of God’s intended use and means for satisfying sexual desire. It is manifested in everything from lust, pornography, masturbation, and adultery, all the way to extremes such as homosexuality and bestiality.
God gave marriage as the proper context for expressing our sexual drives. In various forms, sexual temptation is for something other than what God gave.
What Does it Mean to Burn with Passion?
What I’m calling burning with passion is a distortion of sexual desire. Many people today desire the fulfilment of this desire for physical intimacy almost to the point of distraction. The imagery of a fire that is raging and needs to be controlled or appeased comes to mind. Because the desire is present, sexual temptation is never far behind.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Top 50 Stories on The Aquila Report for 2021: 31-40
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40.
In 2021 The Aquila Report (TAR) posted over 3,000 stories. At the end of each year we feature the top 50 stories that were read.
TAR posts 8 new stories each day, on a variety of subjects – all of which we trust are of interest to our readers. As a web magazine TAR is an aggregator of news and information that we believe will provide articles that will inform the church of current trends and movements within the church and culture.
In keeping with the journalistic tradition of looking back at the recent past, we present the top 50 stories of the year that were read on The Aquila Report site based on the number of hits. We will present the 50 stories in groups of 10 to run on five lists on consecutive days. Here are numbers 31-40:Thoughts on the Present State of the PCA: A Series of Theses Presented by a Concerned Member—Part One
That the foremost sufferers of our present deeds are those that are tempted with homosexual lust. For they need to be encouraged diligently with the assurance that their sin belongs to the old man that was crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), and that they are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) who have been cleansed of their sin and who can and will finally overcome it (Rom. 6:12-14). And yet we set before them as leaders and models men who proudly claim their sin as an essential part of their identity, and who name themselves by it.
The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up (Part 1-Creation)
Though the Creation Study Report is from 2000, Framework proponents are more numerous in the PCA than ever today. Which helps explain many of the PCA’s current problems. Men who are willing to bend scripture to accommodate secularists on creation–God’s foundational act that revealed Him to us as Creator–are more likely to bend scripture to appease the proponents of the latest secular fad.
Revoice Gay-Straight Friends Planning a Life Together
A “deep-dive” Revoice webinar entitled, “Better Together”: In this webinar we discover this gay-straight duo. It is there we discover why couple may be more descriptive than duo. Who are these men? The gay man is Art Pereira, a Student Ministry Director at Hope Presbyterian Church (PCA). His straight-friend is Nick Galluccio, a youth pastor at Stonecrest Community Church. Art describes his friendship with Nick as a family and a household. Those are his words. Why did he use the word household? Because they moved in together.
The Salt That Has Lost Its Savor: The Woke Church and the Undoing of America
This doctrinal malpractice has given us a generation of men, Christian and otherwise, who are what Lewis called “men without chests.”….They are the sort who will, upon reading this article, take great offense at what I have written here and waste no time in letting me know it, but are not particularly offended by the sixty-one million children murdered in the holocaust of abortion since 1973, by universities that are incubators of radicalism, by Democrats who are compiling a “hit list” of Trump supporters, or by the godlessness of the Marxism they openly advocate, which has killed no less than 125 million people in the twentieth century alone.
The Biblical View of Gender and Sexuality
Our denomination itself is experiencing a rise of those who would call themselves “progressives.” But whatever their intentions are, their “progress” is nothing less than regress—for what they are espousing is far removed from and even blatantly contrary to Scripture and sound doctrine. Much of this error will be proposed or debated by these individuals at the PCA’s General Assembly in another week.
What’s Wrong with Our Church Praise Music?
True praise that God loves comes out of a whole heart, in the gathered assembly, as all the voices of the people together are raised, because the marvelous works of the Lord have been sought out, comprehended, and believed. People who have delighted themselves in Christ and his steadfast love shown to them in his wondrous work won’t have to ask about how to achieve true praise.
A Response to Missouri Presbytery’s BCO 31–2 Investigation of TE Greg Johnson
Note: The Session of Covenant Church, Fayetteville, AR, responded privately to Missouri Presbytery’s distribution of its report concerning our BCO 31–2 request, in an effort to encourage them to clarify their positions and to turn away from their theological errors.
Freidrich Schleiermacher, the PCA, and Side B Christianity
If religious feeling makes confessional truth subservient to the changing aspect of our communities, then it should be no real surprise that what we are seeing happen in the “current” sexual revolution is redefining of what is means to be confessional based on the religious experience of the moment. This is what the PCA is up against and, well, all of us together as believers in Christ.
The PCA Has Fallen into Error, and Can’t Get Back Up: Part 3-David Frenchism
But let’s get to the offences of white Christians themselves. Christians who voted for Trump because of their concerns about abortion, gay marriage, assaults on free speech, oppressive taxation, etc., are condemned for failing to “lay down their political arms.” We must understand, though, that this is only an offence for Trump voters. Those who, like French, took up their political arms to loudly support and vote for Joe Biden are guilty of nothing.
Johnson To The PCA: “Merry Christmas. Here Is A Lump Of Coal For Your Stocking”
There are several serious problems with Pastor Johnson’s reasoning here. First, his speech was highly biographical, emotive, and even prejudicial. He implied that anyone who disagrees with his position “hates” homosexuals. It equates traditional Christian sexual ethics with anti-gay bigotry. Second, he assumes that, except for his commitment to Christ, he might have taken a same-sex husband and had a family and that by not violating God’s natural and moral law thus he has made a great sacrifice for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.
