Criticism: Cuts Like A Knife

By Pastor Vinnie MacIsaac[i]

This blog is dedicated to all who have been hurt by criticism and felt it’s cut yet did not understand how it could actually be a good thing. Let’s rethink criticism together.

So Forth

Yada, Yada, Yada

You have heard the expression, ”and so forth and so forth,” It is a fill-in or shorthand for something we mean to say without wanting to spell it all out. It is like the Yiddish saying, “Yada yada yada,” that Jerry Seinfeld made so in big again in the 90’s.

“I can’t wait to get to the beach and go swimming, have a picnic and so and so forth…”

Recently, someone sent an indirect message to me suggesting that if I did not do, “so forth and so forth,” I’d, in essence, be lost. The “so forth and so forth” in this case was a long list of flaws and weakness the person saw in me that they felt had to be corrected asap. The list is not really important except to say that much of what was on it was is deed real flaws I have and real areas of work that need to be overcome. I say this because often when people are critical of us the things they say about us are groundless. In this case, it was not. It was real to some degree or another.

Flakey Flaws

Criticism damages self-worth.

Do real flaws keep anyone out of heaven? Is that really the Gospel? Are people won or lost to salvation based on human performance of any kind? And if it is based on human performance then how much do we need to achieve in order to be saved? I mean, after all, nothing short of perfection will be accepted by God. After all Jesus himself, spelled it out on the Sermon on the mount, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48 ESV)

If you are a Christian, people will criticize you, they will attack you, and they will seek to persecute you, they will cling to real imperfections in you and turn your molehills in public mountains.  And if that is never happening to you then something is wrong! No one likes to be criticized, put down, or called a phony. But I am here to tell you being put down for being a work in progress is no reason to “Flake out on faith.”

Cuts Like a Knife

Bryan Adam’s hit album cover. Cuts Like A Knife.

Growing up in Canada you become a Bryan Adams fan. Along with Corey Hart, RUSH, The Guess Who, Neil Young, and The Tragically Hip, they are all part of the national soundtrack. One of Bryan Adam’s biggest hits was a song called, Cuts Like A Knife, in which Adam’s claims,”

Now it cuts like a knife

But it feels so right

Yeah, it cuts like a knife

Oh, but it feels so right”[ii]

Well, as much as I love that song as a national treasure and pop anthem, I can’t say I agree with Adam’s on this issue. Being “cut” by people you love does not feel good, it hurts.

I was not angry, but I will admit, I was very sad, and let down, and even disturbed to have had this person judge me with such harsh criticism. For this sort of criticism only proved that the brother who lodged it simply did not understand the Gospel and to me, that is heartbreaking. To me it cut like a knife to my heart, not for my sake, but because it showed my brothers disconnect from God’s character.

So let’s be clear, how is it that we are made perfect, and how is it that we get into the Kingdom? How is that that God sees me as perfect, even as perfect as he is? I think Jesus made the standard pretty clear in Matt 5:48 right? — The standard is the perfection of the Father. Anything short of that will not stand, and will not gain us entrance into the Kingdom of God. So then, how do I reach such a standard? —hmmm, let say today, I Vince MacIsaac, gave my whole life and heart more deeply to God than ever before, and let’s assume the result is that I never ever sinned again.  Would I then be as perfect as my Father in Heaven? Nope! Not even close, I have a 48-year track record of past sin, yet he has no past record of sin. How then can I a sinner get his track record? By what means? Or am I hopelessly doomed?

Look here;

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

(2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

It is called the Substitutionary Atonement. Jesus took our place that we might take his. What does that mean? It means exactly what it says, he became SIN (my place) that I may become THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD (His place).

My works did not cut like a knife, they cut like nails, pounded through His flesh that I might be found Righteous by His actions.

The Good News

The Good News is found in JESUS!

The Word Gospel in Greek simply means “Good News.” The good news of criticisms is it comes to us and reminds us we are not perfect. When it cuts like a knife to our hearts it reminds us our sin cut like nails through his flesh.

The truth about criticism is this, and criticism about you that actually sticks and hurts has a little bit of truth in it. The good news is that when criticism cuts you, he drives you back to Jesus to be healed and in that process, He has the chance to heal you from more than the cut. He gets to heal you of the pinch of truth that caused the infection in the first place.

Don’t resist attacks. Take them. Take them to Jesus. Those who attack you will be baffled as to why you don’t respond from the flesh. The reason is simple your imperfections are healed by the holes in His hands.

Related Articles

The LIE Christians Tell About The Gospel

The Reserve Of Courage

The Joy Of Despair

Footnotes.

[i] This blog first appeared as a guest entry titled “The Gospel of Criticism” on https://heinspiredme.com  This version of the article is slightly different and longer than the version that first appeared at https://heinspiredme.com/guest-post-the-gospel-of-criticism/ on November 28, 2018.

[ii] Songwriters: Bryan Adams / James Douglas Vallance. Cuts Like a Knife lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Parking The Potty Mouth

By Vinnie MacIsaac

Wayne and Garth from “Waynes World” are 90’s pop cultural icons.

As Wayne once said to Garth, “You kiss your mother this that mouth”?[1] It is an old expression that has even repeated by everyone from Austin Powers[2] to Nick Fury[3], but it is a lot more severe expression of that sentiment we find embedded in the original promulgation given to us.

“With the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father, and with it, we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” James 3:9-10 NIV

It’s not my fault; some people just are asking for it! A few weeks ago I was trying to get around the corner of a parking lot during the mad pre-Christmas shopping rush, and this moron was holding up 10-15 cars because she did not want to pull to the side as she rolled down her window to share Christmas greetings with someone she knew on the sidewalk. She held us all up just stopped in the middle of the roadway! I beeped my horn a few times and nothing! She pretended I was not even there! I confess my blood was boiling and I swear I was about to roll down my window and blast her when the car heading the other way beat me to it! The driver yelled at her with such pure and mighty rage; that I feared for her safety, and she did as well as it scared her into pulling over right away. Rarely in my whole life had I heard such a perfect production of profanity ever be performed as he did at that moment. I mean it was truly Oscars-worthy, but was I any better? Maybe I did not threaten to kill her, among other things (too crude to repeat), as he had, but the second I muttered to myself that she was a moron, I was just as guilty in the sight of God.

 Even if I can navigate around the annoying ones what in the world what do I do with the rude ones! It is the nasty and the mean ones that personally get under my skin! I just want to give them a piece of my mind! But that is the problem, what mind do I have? That is what the Holy Spirit keeps asking me every time I misstep with my tongue. Do you have the mind of Christ burning in you or the mind of Vinnie?

The Greek word Kenosis means to empty. Jesus emptied Himself of his own will and calls us to be like-minded. We have been called to think like Jesus just as Jesus thought like His Father.

In Philippians 2:5 The Apostle Paul is on point with the source of the change we need when he says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” and if that was not damning enough the Holman Christian Standard puts it this way, “Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus.” And leaving zero wiggle room the NIV nails me with, “in your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.” The bottom line is, I need less Vinnie and more Christ.

 Christ is holy. With our tounges, we lift up praises to Him who is Holy, perfect, and righteous and the powerful redeemer of our souls! Then we turn around and cast down into mud and humiliation and shame the very same people whom our good God redeems. We gladly receive from Him blessing and favor while we rob dignity from those whom He loves. James rightfully declares our actions as sin.

 According to James, the tongue has us under its control and not the other way around.

“If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.” (James 3:3-4 ESV)

The window of your maturity as a Christian is your mouth and how to talk to others with it. It is the metric best shows the condition of the heart.

Riding a horse is not only fun and exhilarating it is a spiritual event, but it is also a Bible lesson. The horse is going where you yank the reign because it is attached to the bit in his mouth. Likewise, the tongue is the steering wheel of your life. You might think you control it, you might think you tell it what to say and when to say it, but it just might be that your tongue rather controls you, and is taking you where it wills.  The problem with that is that according to Jesus the tongue is simply the slave to your heart. Jesus when speaking about the connection between the mouth and the heart told us, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 NIV) Think of it this way, you know those slips that just slip out, or that you mutter under your breath they are not slips at all but rather they are the seeping of the sewage in the heart up into your mouth you eventually end up vomiting out all over those around you. If the idea of sewage creeping up into your mouth and being spewed out on people around you does not gross you out then see it this way, according to the James you are setting people on fire with fire that directly comes from Hell (see James 3:6). You, therefore, are the Devil’s minions doing his deeds in this world.

 For this reasons James says,

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways…” (James 3:12b ESV)

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways…” (James 3:12b ESV)

I remember as a young new pastor in one of my first churches I attended a Bible study, and a question was asked by the teacher that morning, and a new believer in Christ spoke up and answered. And while her response was brilliant, she mistakenly cited Peter for a remark made by Paul. A much more senior and trained member brutally spoke up, pointing out her error and stressing the importance of Christians having their facts right least they lead someone astray. After class, I cornered that senior man and asked why he had done that. To which he replied, “Pastor, she was just wrong, and if you’re not going to tell her I am.” I remember walking away thinking; she may have been factually wrong, but in the sight of God he was morally wrong. I’ll take being factually wrong over spiritually wrong any day!

Nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, in the class movie, “A Christmas Story” had a potty mouth that got him in trouble. But a potty mouth is so much more than swearing.

 What I have come to understand is it is not just about teachers, though they bear a significant burden. I have come to realize that having a potty mouth is more than saying a cuss word, taking the Lord’s name in vain, or creatively stringing together crude and often sexually demeaning expressions together in a way to morally shame someone one. It is more simply the truth of where you are spiritually in regards to your fellow man.  And James has come to remind us, that God cares little for how you talk to him (praise) if how you talk to others (curse) is not right.

Business partners hands on top of each other symbolizing companionship

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Related Short Story:

The Epic Senior Prank of ‘89

FOOTNOTES

[1] Wayne’s World

[2] Mike Myers character

[3] Marvel Comics Character

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