Look at these two incidents from the book of Acts for a good lesson in knowing your place in Christ:
Incident 1: Acts 5:41
“The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
Incident 2: Acts 14:11-15
When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” … brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because ...the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you.
In the first incident they were disgraced and yet rejoicing. In the second incident they were being worshipped and yet refusing to accept it. That is exactly what happens when you really know where you stand in Christ. For most of us today we would be discouraged in the first situation and encouraged in the second situation. That is the exact opposite of what we see here.
I am a big fan of encouraging others. I try to do it as much as I can. But I am cautious when I am at the receiving end of this good thing called encouragement. My warning to the receivers of encouragement is this: All of us need to be encouraged from time to time. But we have to be careful not to be dependent on it for our motivation. It is addictive. It makes you dependent. And if you depend on it, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
On one hand there are fans who try to make an angel of you. On the other hand, there are very discouraging people like Tobias and Sanbalath. Watch out. A true man/woman of God depends neither on the encouragement nor the discouragement of others. He/she is humble enough to not be puffed up by human words of encouragement but also strong enough to not be deterred by the words of discouraging people.
Blessings,
The Cyber Evangelist
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