THURSDAY 2ND FEB.,2017

TOPIC: STOP BEING SO CRITICAL (2)
TEXT: 1 Peter 3:10 “For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile…”

God dealt with Moses because of some of the mistakes he made. In fact, one of them kept him from entering the Promised Land. Nevertheless, God wouldn’t permit anybody else to criticize Moses – not even his sister Miriam. So what can you learn from this?
1) We’re all capable of harbouring a critical attitude knowingly or unknowingly. Miriam had great qualities. She saved Moses’ life as a child, and she wrote a song of praise Israel used to celebrate the crossing of the Red Sea but, she paid a high price for her critical attitude – leprosy.
2) When you’re resentful you become critical. ‘Miriam…began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife’ (Num. 12:1) but, that wasn’t the real issue? No. ‘They said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?”’ (vs 2). Moses’ wife was just a diversion; the real issue was Moses’ success. Their beef was: ‘How come he gets all the attention?.
3) When one is elevated by God, there is a tendency to be criticized.

The Bible says, ‘Moses was very humble’ (v. 3), yet even he couldn’t escape the pain inflicted by self-appointed critics and you’re no different; as long as you’re alive somebody will find fault with what you’re doing. Let go of it and keep going.
4) If you’ve been unnecessarily over critical, you need to change your mindset as you trust God to help you internalize the truth-knowledge of God’s Word of being critical negatively. When Aaron acknowledged, ‘We have acted foolishly…we have sinned’ (v. 11), God showed mercy and healed Miriam. Most of us would rather classify criticism as a weakness, but from God’s perspective it’s a genuine, bonafide, registered sin. And there’s only one way to deal with sin – The Holy Spirit living in us is not a critic but, a comforter and God is no respecter of persons so avoid and stop committing it. (James 5:15-16)

Meditation: Rev 14:5

Bible Study
Gen. 34; Mark 5; Job 1; Romans 5