Online Worship Services

None of us like to be challenged or have people in disagreement with us. Some take it better than others. Many have matured to accept criticisms and process through them, but we don’t like being wrong, or thought of as doing wrong. Most of us are really striving to get “it” right, and we have enough self-doubt that the criticism of others can leave us reeling. We may run to despair, but often our defenses are raised. 

On the other, we live in a culture where it is supposed that we get to choose for ourselves what is good and healthy and acceptable for us individually. In such a culture, the guidance is to reject any questioning and criticism of your attitude, actions, or choices. 

With our natural tendency to default to defense in the face of criticism and our cultural conditioning to render any challenges to our decisions baseless, we really must highlight that the subject matter of our recent studies in 1 Peter 3:13-4:6. Peter is addressing the issue of being wrongly, or unjustly, judged and suffering because of it. If we are not careful to highlight this, we may fall prey to ignoring, or avoiding, any necessary and positive correction. We need a strategy when faced with criticisms and challenges. We need to know how to receive them without becoming jerks. We need to know how to process through whether they are founded or baseless, and whether they are to be heeded, or honorably discharged. In this message we strategize to guard against default defensiveness, or outright rejection of questions and criticisms.