Who Is Pushing Your Button?

Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 13 (love chapter) that love is not easily provoked. In other words love does not overreact. I have found in my own life wherever there is an overreaction, it is usually an indicator of a place I have not been healed. It is that sore spot, scar, painful place, that when someone touches it makes you holler. It may be that you had a rough relationship with your dad and he always said that you were lazy, then your wife says to you that you are being lazy, resulting in an nuclear explosion of your emotions. What happened? You are still living out of an event that happened twenty years ago. Wherever there is an overreaction, it is not that you are a bad person, it is that they have touched a painful place.

The devil will put people in your life to push your sore spot, I call it pushing your button. They will try to provoke you by saying something to see if they can get you to rise up. This is where self control comes in, it is at times when my mind is tearing them apart but my tongue is being held back from saying what I am really thinking. I used to tell people off in my head while I was talking nice on the outside until I read in 1 Cor. 13 where Paul also says love thinks no evil, and now not only can I not say it, I can't even think it.

Just like God sends people in your life to help you to arrive at your destiny, the enemy assigns people to cause you to overreact resulting in sabotaging your destiny. Beware of the people (critics) in your life that will try to get you to respond out of your hurt instead of responding out of love. I was challenged recently when I read that Jesus said, love your enemies (didn't say to trust them), He finishes by saying if you love those who love you what credit is that to you (Luke 6:27-33)? In other words, What credit is it to you if you spend your whole life only loving people that will love you back? Big deal even the sinners do that. If we spend our life only loving those who endorse us, support us and believe in us, He parallels it with the love of a sinner. God wants us to come out of natural love into supernatural love, where you can love the critical people, those that have been nasty to you (don't have to be their best friend), mistreated you, lied on you... Why? Because that's how God loved us while we were still sinning and were unlovable.

Let me finish with this thought, God will use the devil to bless you and make him pay for it (2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Peter 4:12-14). God used a dirty bird to feed Elijah, used Pharaoh to fund the building of the tabernacle, Nehemiah built the walls of Jerusalem with the money of a heathen king, David killed Goliath with hos own sword (your greatest weapon is hidden in your greatest battle). When you learn to stay in God's love and allow Him to heal you of past hurts, God will even cause your enemies to bless you.

Let me finish with a true story, There was a woman that worked at a factory and her co workers because of her faith, ridiculed and criticized her daily. One day on her break she was walking to the snack machine, and as she passed them they were talking about her. When she got to the machine, she knew what selection she would make because she selected the same thing every day. Without looking she pushed her normal selection which was empty and when she looked the red light said, make another selection. When people keep pushing your buttons to get you to overreact, hear these words "Make another selection". I refuse to allow you to move me out of my blessing! Know that your critics are necessary, Why? Because your friends create comfort but your enemies create movement! They are moving you to your promotion.

Attention Critics: "Shut Your Mouth!"

It amazes me the time that critics spend in devising a plan against, scheming, criticizing, and focusing on your failure. I have learned over time that any time a critic appears it is an indicator that your next level is about to reveal itself. The very attack against you reveals that your critic believes you are capable of obtaining your goal. Otherwise they would not waste their communication, time, finances, and efforts if your dream or goal is impossible. If you critics believe in you that much, so should you.

Just as there is an assignment on your life, and God has assigned people to help you, there are people who are assigned to distract you from your destiny. I call them dream thieves. They are so insecure and clueless concerning their own dreams that they spend their entire life trying to destroy yours. I want to give you some principles to encourage you and empower you to stay the course, because as sure as your enemy shows up, it is a sure sign that you are close. If you and the enemy are walking in the same direction then you are going the wrong way, but if you are facing resistance, press on!

1) The people who most often misunderstand and misrepresent your destiny are those that are closest to you (Moses, Joseph, David, Jesus). They are blinded by familiarity to the greatness in you. Expect them to be unhappy over your progress (Ezra 4:5).

2) God most often sends you what you need in a package you least expect. Paul encourages us in 1 Corinthians 5:14-17 to no longer regard people after their flesh. Just as Jesus did we all have two natures, a God nature (anointing) and a flesh nature. When Jesus was in his hometown they saw a carpenter's boy, so they received a carpenter's boy. In Jericho, they regarded Him as the son of God, so they received the power of the son of God. How you perceive someone determines how you receive them. If all you see me as, is Craig a southern boy then that is all you will get from me. You must discern the treasure in me if you want to draw it out.

3) If your critics can discourage you from your dreams, then you are not ready. Your dream is permanent and it can't be altered by those who do not understand you. The only way they can succeed is if you believe them. If they don't like you how can it hurt you? If they love me how can it help you? Your destiny is never in the hands of a man, especially your critics.

4) Success silences your critics. The only way to shut up your critics is to succeed.

5) You qualify those who are assigned to help you in the fact that they make your baby jump! Whenever God is preparing you to give birth to something great, He will always have someone who has a dream similar to yours (Mary and Elizabeth). The bible tells us that when Mary went to see her, she was already six months pregnant. As soon as Mary stepped on Elizabeth's front porch, Elizabeth's baby was some theologians say was dead, leaped in her womb. You need to surround yourself with people that make your baby jump. They celebrate you and don't tolerate you, they are excited about your dream, their conversations with you are never focused on them (you never get a word in), they always see the solutions not the problems.

6) Only fight battles that have spoils. In other words if they attack your character, then it is a worthy fight, if they are always negative, then don't fight, leave them! When you get the wrong people out of your life, the wrong things stop happening.

7) Remember that you are a champion, not a loser. Champions spend their time building their dreams, losers spend their lives criticizing those dreams.

We'll that is all for now. It is time to spend some valuable time with my family. Tomorrow I will deal with four questions that qualify people for intimacy. On Monday I will discuss the difference between being important and being impacting. I look forward to your comments.

"GET A LIFE"

This issue will be very brief. I just want to take a second to encourage you. God challenged me with a statement recently and it was this, “People in America generally hate other’s success”. That is so true. Have you ever noticed that when you are struggling and you are living in a box apartment just trying to survive, nobody criticizes you, but when you buy that dream house everybody is criticizing you, saying “How did you afford that house”? As long as you are driving that little beat up car, nobody could care less what you do, but as soon as you drive up in that brand new Lexus, everybody hates you. Why? People in America and in the Church are eaten up with envy. Paul list 16 attributes of God’s love found in 1 Corinthians 13. One of the attributes is, true love does not envy.

Jealousy and envy are not the same thing, jealousy says, that is my husband don’t you dare look at him that way. In other words you are jealous over something that belongs to you. Envy says, I can’t believe you got that promotion, I deserved it more. Envy is when you have negative feelings over what belongs to someone else. Covet is when that feeling becomes a reality, a force that drives you. True love does not envy.

The dangerous thing about envy is that it hides in pockets. You can be in Church raising one hand and manipulating with the other hand. Envy is dangerous because to the visible eye it is invisible. But it is dangerous; it causes strife, division and death in the Church. How do you know if you have a hidden pocket of envy? If you see someone else get a blessing and outwardly you are rejoicing with them, but inwardly you are slicing and dicing them. If you can’t rejoice inwardly as well as outwardly, you have envy. Here is what I have learned through experience, hurt people will hurt people, critical people will be critical, and negative people will be negative. Your destiny is never in the hands of lowly people. If they hate you because of your blessing so be it. Don’t fall into their trap.

What amazes me the most is that people who are critical spend all their time criticizing you, when in reality they envy what you got. They will criticize you over your new blessing until you leave it, and then they will come right behind you and scoop it up. Don’t allow their negative spirit to distract you from what is yours. Your blessing is your blessing, it doesn’t belong to anyone else, but when you focus on the critics you forfeit what is yours. Let them talk; it just reveals that they are so consumed with your life, that they don’t have a life. I want to close with one statement to all those critics, doubters, naysayers, and hateful people who are so focused on our failure, GET A LIFE!

Blessings,

Craig Sloan