BY: Rev. A.J. Ogden

How we respond to criticism will have much to do with our own health and well being in life. Constructive criticism is good and we need to listen to it and pray about whether it is right or wrong in God’s sight. We can often learn valuable lessons from them.

But, my friends, there are some agreement for everyone, but are always negative. I call them chronic grunters, or kill joys. They constantly whimper, whine, fuss and complain. Nothing ever pleases them because they do not seem to want to be happy! You cannot please them and you are wasting your time to even try. Just please God even if others are displeased.

I pastured a church in the New Orleans area for many years. God blessed Pauline and I very much. But in the ministry you get criticism of some kind all the time. Fault finders are numerous but sincere helpers are few. But we learned right off at the start that we could not take up too much time trying to answer every little criticism! If we had tried to do that we wouldn’t have had any time to do real ministry. Some of you just have to ignore and just do what God says do. If we please God everyone else will profit. Don’t get me wrong, we were not perfect but we were trying to follow a perfect Saviour!

There were many who criticized Jesus and he was perfect. The psalmist David wrote in Psalm 1:1-2, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”