Recently I heard this statement: “It is not any of your business what others think about you.” Pause to consider what is being said. Ask yourself how much of your life has been shaped and affected by expending energy doing what this saying says we should not, namely, spending time worrying about what others think of us.
But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. 1 Corinthians 4:3
Paul takes the matter a step further. He claims it also does not matter what I think of myself, much less what others think of me.
Imagine the freedom we would experience if we were to let go of any concern about the judgments of others, or even ourselves. Would we be more at peace? Would we feel more comfortable in who we are if we were not comparing ourselves, as far as we know ourselves, with the expectations of others, or even our own?
To return to Paul’s statement, he follows it by saying the only one who examines him is the Lord. But, how does Paul’s insistence that the Lord’s examination is what matters make you feel? It really depends on who you understand the Lord to be, his character, his nature, and his disposition. Does the thought of the Lord examining you make you fearful? Hopeful? Tense or at peace?
Think about Paul’s experience. He knows the Lord as the one who appeared to him first on the Damascus road when he was a violent man doing violence against Jesus. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,” Jesus said. But what did the Lord do as the one who examines Paul? He called him to be the his own messenger to the kings of this world!
Where was the scolding, the shaming, or at least a good recounting of what an awful man Paul was? There was none of that, only a promise to be with him and an unbelievable welcome into that which Paul was fighting against! Stop fighting me and join me.
If we know the Lord as Paul knew Jesus, if we understand that what he says concerning us is all that matters, and if we don’t care at all about what anyone else thinks or has to say, what do we have to fear? We know the Lord Jesus to be for us even when it seems he ought to be against us.
We are able to live with hope even though we know the awful extent of our faults. We are sinful, but we do not fear coming before the Lord if we know him as Paul did. We have no time to care what mere mortals think! Their opinions mean nothing!
Leave a Reply