Allowing an honest compliment to break through to us at our core is one of the quickest ways of feeling God’s grace. Most of us, when we receive a compliment, out of humiliation, or pride pass it off. We excuse the comment. We don’t want the attention, or we don’t want to look like we want the attention.
Today I received an e-mail from a close friend that said some things that were hard to receive. True and good things, but still hard to receive. I would say that it was this way because my pride was saying, “Yes you have been like this.” My humiliation was saying, “You don’t deserve this. If they really knew what was going on they wouldn’t say this.” But my spirit quickly pointed out that only because of God working in me could a person say anything remotely close to what they said.
I think this is the battle that goes on whenever we receive a compliment. We let the compliment be about us, and not about what God has done in us. We try and deal with emotion of having somebody give us worth. We don’t like the uncomfortable feeling of giving somebody else’s words permission to effect our souls. For people in the limelight this is especially true. We begin to question motives and the genuineness of comments, while all the while we let the praises be about us and not what God is doing in us.
The way that we receive compliments and praise reveals a lot about how we receive grace. Our pride says, “You don’t really need grace, you try hard to be righteous.” Our humiliation in the moment of grace says, “You’re not really worth this, it’s too good to be true, don’t receive it.” But the Spirit in us says, “Soak it up, because you have died and found yourself risen in Christ. The good people see in you is a reflection of me!”
We must be a people who allow the Spirit room to speak these words of encouragement to. It is the lifeblood of seeing yourself the way that God sees us in Christ. And seeing ourselves in the victory of Christ is essential for seeing our value to Kingdom of God.
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