Is it wise to take on others opinions of ourselves?

No, not unless the Holy Spirit gives us a witness of truth when we hear their words…

People have strong opinions of us…

They do…

They could be our siblings, they could be our parents, they could be our grandparents, they could be our teachers or our Pastors or our spiritual leaders or whoever…

People who are ‘invested’ in our lives can have strong opinions about us – what we should be doing, how we should be doing it – obviously our wives and husbands can have these strong opinions also – or our girlfriend or boyfriends or our fiancés, etc…

What do we do with people’s strong opinions about us (these can either be felt or spoken)?

They are basically expectations…

When we feel them we don’t know what to do with them, how to handle them, do we fight back?  Do we stay silent?  If we stay silent is that meaning that we’re agreeing with their strong opinions about ourselves?

Jesus had some strong opinions levelled at Him when He stood trial before the Chief Priests and the Sanhedrin…

He choose His moment to speak and He choose His moment to remain silent…

I’ve been learning to do the same by allowing the Holy Spirit to control my responses…

When I’m on the receiving end of these strong opinions or expectations of how my performance should be – even if these are unspoken – I’m learning to stay silent if someone else’s flesh is speaking to me – not answering their condemnation – but to only speak when I sense that it is their new self speaking to me or that the Lord puts the words on my heart to say…

There is always that desire to ‘snap back’ and ‘correct’ falsehoods being spoken of us – I’ve been learning to resist this – not by ‘biting my lip’ but just by the fact that the Holy Spirit is now in control of that so that it doesn’t matter what their opinion of me is but God will show them what they need to know…

Only He can…

This understanding of the truth has helped me to let go…

I can speak the truth and then let it go…

The outcome is irrelevant to me – only the Lord can speak to the heart and establish truth in the heart…

No end of speaking by me is going to ‘help’ that…

So in summary, does what anyone say about us matter?

Does what anyone think of us matter?

Does it matter if we feel strong expectation coming our way from others?

Does it matter if others try to ‘twist’ us into what they want us to be?

Put us ‘in a box’ – ‘you can only be this in my mind’?

Does it matter?

We give all these things to the Lord – even the hardest – our parents – our fathers – what they think of us…

I have had these expectations on my youngest son – just saw that as I typed the sentence above – forgive me Lord, I’m sorry…

As we let them go – our expectations on others – and as we let go of our inability to handle others crushing and mind numbing – crippling – expectations on us – we see that our responses are just as bad as their expectations – we hate what they’re doing to us – we do – and extreme pressure reveals this – only the Lord can carry these things and protect us from them – showing us His impression of us and showing us what He wants us to do – because ultimately we are slaves to Him and not these people even when what He instructs us to do makes these people think that we have succumbed to their pressure or are now ‘under their thumb’ – this is the hardest submission – where your obedience to God makes others feel like you ‘capitulated’ and have ‘given in’ – and the Lord closes your mouth to ‘explain’ and defend yourself…

Does others opinion of us matter?

No, it does not…

New International Version
But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation–

New American Standard Bible
yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach–

King James Bible
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

Colossians 1:22