The Dangers of Insecurity

Revelation 3:19 I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent.

How do you cope with criticism? I mean, when someone comes up to you and suggests that you may have fallen short or failed in this or that, how do you respond? It’s an important question.

One of the most important, most profound, and most fundamental influences in our lives is how we see ourselves. And how we see ourselves, isn’t always that healthy.

Let’s say you’re insecure. A person comes up to you and shares a constructive, well-meaning piece of criticism with you. Of course, none of us likes criticism, but an insecure person is going to react terribly to it. They might get angry, they might feel hurt, they might withdraw further into their shell, they might start bad-mouthing the person who criticised them. Those are all the reactions of an insecure person.

A secure person, on the other hand, might initially be annoyed by the criticism, but fairly quickly starts thinking about it and assessing it as objectively as they can. And if the criticism has some basis to it, if it’s warranted, they start doing things to change, to learn from what they’ve just heard, to get better at this thing that they may have botched up.

So … are you secure, or insecure? Jesus has this to say:

Revelation 3:19 I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. (NRSV)

Repenting is a simple word. It means to turn away from what is wrong, that which has just been pointed out to us, and to turn back to what is right.

Often times God’s reproof and discipline come through other people. We can reject them out of hand, we can pridefully go on our merry way, or we can be earnest and repent.

Which will it be?

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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Dig Deeper

• God’s Sovereignty
• Judgement
• Love
• Low Self Esteem
• Sin & Repentance
• Transformation