The Gospel and Personal Criticism

I found these all too true words here by C.J. Mahaney:  http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/The-Gospel-and-Personal-Criticism.aspx

 

Many years ago I came across a quote from Martin Luther about personal criticism from unfriendly critics. Luther’s point was that no matter how bad the personal criticisms—no matter how accurate, or inaccurate, the accusations—there is more sin in each of our hearts than a critic could ever discover.

Luther’s humbling reminder has been useful when I have been criticized and accused of things that were simply not accurate (although to avoid any misunderstanding, there have been plenty of critics that were right in their observations, too).

Far too often, my initial impulse has been to dismiss the criticism and defend myself, not realizing that this response is simply an evidence of pride.

Luther’s words directly confront my temptation to a

Being positioned in Christ

Over the years I have tended to prefer Pastors and Churches that find a way to sneak or relate Christ and the Gospel message into every sermon. By doing this, I believe, they are fighting against many of the temptations and traps that many people can fall into. As I think about this I wanted to bring back a list of items that highlights the Gospel centrality mindset in comparison to Religious mentality mindset. The base document was started by Tim Keller and I added several items that were thoughts of mine as I thought this over.

Below is the table contrasting people that find their identity in Jesus Christ and the Gospel message to those