Are You Quick to Defend Yourself?

Do you find that when you face criticism your reflex is to go into defense mode? You become your own defense attorney and your friend, spouse, etc. is the prosecutor?  Or maybe you find your knee jerk reaction to your sin, failure, or weakness is to make excuses.

I came across this great quote on how the gospel, rightly understood, reveals how silly all our attempts to justify our sins, mistakes and failures are.

The person who defends self when God gave Himself to save us from His wrath doesn't understand grace. The man who offers excuses for his sin when God offered His Son to pay for it has no real apprehension of the gospel. The individual who diminishes the offense of his sin before others also treats the cross like a poignant gesture of a well-meaning God. The man who won't admit the truth about his life can't truly enjoy the benefits of Christ's...

But, we can come clean. What Jesus has done for us on the cross relieves us of the need to defend self....We no longer have to offer excuses because Jesus has dealt with all our failures. There are no real excuses anyway. We don't have to dodge the severity of our sin because He forgave it. To acknowledge this draws more attention to His grace than it does to our sin...

Once you get here, you'll know true freedom. You won't be imprisoned by the need to defend, or to be though well of by men.

You will allow people to speak into your life without qualifying every word they say. You'll be open to criticism without being defensive. You'll accept help and admit defeat. Insecurities- which are our nervous efforts to keep the truth about us away from other people- meet their match in Jesus, who knew the truth and died for us anyway.

(Byron Yawn, What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him, pg. 114).

Freed to honestly assess our sins, failures, and weakness and to trust in God's grace. Freed to genuinely repent and not just wallow in self-pity.  Freed to respond to criticism like George Whitefield did when he received a stinging letter of personal attacks from someone. In response, Whitefield wrote the malicious attacker back with these words, "Thank you sir for your criticism. If you knew about me what I know about me, you would have written a longer letter" (Yawn, pg. 111). That is a person who understands the grace of God and believes it.

If you, like me, struggle in this area, I strongly encourage you to read the article "The Cross and Criticism" by Alfred Priori.