Evaluated

As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide. 1 Corinthians 4:3-4

THE INTERNET gives anyone and everyone a platform for broadcasting their opinions. With the click of a mouse, we can become amateur critics offering our unimpeachable perspective on pretty much anything —including our opinions about other people.

Judging others in a public way, however, is nothing new. Evidently there were those in the church in Corinth who were freely sharing their opinions about Paul. Paul wrote them a letter to challenge not only the measure by which these people were judging him but also their standing to judge him. “It matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority,” he wrote. Paul was not concerned even with his own rating of himself. “I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point,” he said. There was only one Evaluator who mattered to Paul and one examination that counted. Only the Lord’s assessment of Paul mattered to him.

Oh, that we could impart this kind of freedom to our children when they are desperate to prove their worth to a world seemingly waiting to evaluate their every performance, post, and picture. The opinions of others can be so very uplifting on those days when they excel and perform well. But how they can crush our children when their critics point out their weaknesses and failures. The load of living by the evaluation of others is too heavy to bear. It is exhausting to live every day in front of a watching but critical world.

What our children need to counteract this pressure is the truth of the gospel. There, the way of weakness is the way of strength. The way of poverty is the way of riches. The way to glory is the way of humility. The gospel says that what matters is not what we think of ourselves or what others think of us, but what God thinks of us. And God ultimately evaluates us on the basis of what we think of Jesus.

Lord, please save ________ from being ruled and ruined by the evaluations of others. Save ________ from the tyranny of self-evaluation, too. Instead, fix ________’s eyes on Jesus. Give ________ rest in the reality of the paradoxical way in which you evaluate human achievement.