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She might say, “Now, Dr. Gillham, you’ve got to understand something. It’s not Bill’s handling of the word
nine
that we’re concerned with this year. He’s already got that one whipped. It’s the word
ten
he’s having trouble with ’cause he’s from Oklahoma. He calls it
tan.
Now that’s a problem.” Her whole focus is on drawing attention to errors, not on encouraging small signs of progress.

Here’s another paper that’s not Bill’s. It was given to me by the mother of a seven-year-old boy. He produced it for a creative writing assignment (see Illustration 2.2).

I don’t know how extensively you’ve studied human intelligence, but this is a smart cookie! We want to do what we can to encourage a kid like this. Did you see what his teacher put on his paper, however? “This is very hard to read!” Thud. Instead of encouraging his talent, she put him down. She passed up an opportunity to edify and build up, and he’s going to take it as a personal inadequacy.

Now back to my Bill for one more example. In the paper below, you can see that the teacher has discovered a severe case of the short lower case e’s. She marked every one of them wrong (see Illustration 2.3)!

Let’s say that I decide it’s time to go back up to see the teacher again, and I take Bill’s paper along. I say, “Now, Ma’am, I see you’ve given Bill a B because he’s blown it with his little e’s there, but what about this o in the word
grasshopper
? That’s a pretty good looking o. And how about that l in
lay
? That’s nice and straight, and you didn’t say anything about that.”

And she’d say something like this to me, “Now after visiting with you
twice
on this same matter, I’m beginning to gain some insight into your son’s problem. Let’s take it from the top again. We’re not interested in your boy’s o’s and l’s. He’s got those down pat. But if we’re ever going to stamp the ignorance out of him, we’ve got to get him straightened out on his e’s.” You see, her mentality is that in order to help him, she’s got to find something that he’s doing wrong and then straighten him out.

Now, to show you I’ve got this teacher pegged right, look at this one. She’s scored it 100, but messy. She can’t get him on math today, so she’s going to nail him on cleanliness (see Illustration 2.4.)!

Now I don’t mean to pick on this teacher. And I’m not hammering the school system but the world system. It’s designed to destroy, especially the weak ones, the very ones upon whom the Lord Jesus has compassion. And we do it to them. We do it in our own homes, to our own spouses and kids! I managed my own family this way for years. Praise God, He turned me around (more about that later when I discuss my unique version of the flesh).

What’s the alternative to PBA in the classroom setting? Here’s another actual school paper (see Illustration 2.5).

This teacher simply discovers the best thing the child has done on the paper and comments on it. It’s not flattery. The Word teaches not to do that, that it’s hollow. She’s just trying to encourage, to find something she can do to edify the people around her.

Does that mean a teacher should never tell a student he’s doing something wrong? Of course not. But you have to earn the right to do it. Look at this paper (see Illustration 2.6):

You see, the teacher has encouraged the child with “good” and “beautiful.” Her positive attitude toward him has earned her the right to say, “Oh, by the way, George, your lowercase b’s are too short. Here’s a model for you to imitate next time.” How do you suppose he’s going to respond to that kind of encouragement? The same way you would!

That’s a picture of Jesus Christ. What if He had said to Peter at the first opportunity, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” Scratch one prospective disciple! The guy never would have joined up. It would have been “Jesus and the eleven.” But no, He loved him in obvious ways, thus earning the right to love him yet another way by punching him out. Sure, He got tough with people at times, but they
needed
it. That is the definition of
agape
.

One of the best-kept secrets in Christianity is that God accepts us. True, He can’t stand our sinful acts, but He loves us. He doesn’t have us on performance-based acceptance; He has us on
Jesus-based acceptance.
If you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the Father has accepted you completely. Performance has nothing whatever to do with it. Performance is important to God, yes, but it has to do with winning His
approval,
not His acceptance. It has to do with hearing Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” one day at the Judgment Seat of Christ, but it has nothing to do with hearing Him say, “I accept you as My beloved child” (John 1:12).

You can be the greatest performer on the block at keeping God’s standards, and you’ll still be totally rejected by God if you are unsaved. One of the major purposes of those standards (the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, etc.) is to frustrate you to the point where you’ll see that there’s no way you’re ever going to earn His acceptance. You’ve got to change methods. You’ve got to come to the Father through
Christ’s
perfection, just as He said.

To demonstrate how deeply entrenched Satan has made the performance-based acceptance syndrome, consider this biblically based illustration. On a one-to-ten scale, where ten is the best, put a number on how well you accept yourself, your spouse, and your kids, assuming all are born again. Let’s suppose you selected a five for yourself. You’re saying that you still have five additional points to climb before you can accept yourself perfectly.

But God accepts you perfectly in Christ already. God doesn’t grade on a one-to-ten scale; He grades pass-fail. His acceptance of you and me is not contingent on our performance, but on what we have done with Jesus Christ’s performance for us. If you have surrendered to Jesus as Lord and Savior, then God has already accepted you completely. He couldn’t love or accept you more if you had never sinned. And He’ll never love or accept you less no matter how often you
do
sin.

Actually, any Christian who accepts himself or any other believer at less than ten has higher standards than God! He sees himself and his loved ones falling far short of the standard for acceptance. This person is using performance as the criterion for acceptance. God, however, uses Christ’s finished work for us as the criterion for acceptance. Thus, any Christian who is striving for acceptance is fighting a battle that’s already been won.

(For additional help in identifying your unique version of the flesh, see the “Flesh Inventory”.)

Answers in “Answers to Questions for Further Study”.

Anabel, my precious wife who’s trusted God’s grace to take her through the deep water of being married to me, approached her wedding day with great anticipation. With a track record of twenty-two years of success at playing Lord of the Ring, she was confident of her ability to make it fly. Other women seemed to be able to perform well enough in their marriages. A lot of them seemed happy and content. If they could handle it, so could she. After all, hadn’t she always been able to handle life?

She could learn how to cook to please her husband. She could mend clothing. She could redecorate rooms and plan the grocery shopping. She could learn to meet her husband’s sexual needs. She could do it. She had
self
-confidence.

After the honeymoon was over, however, life settled into the routine of, “How can we plug my electric razor and your hair curler into one outlet?” “When are you going to be through in the lavatory? I’ve got to be to work by eight you know!” “Would you please not run the washer when I’m in the shower? I swear, the next time you do that, you’re going to regret it!”

Things weren’t going the way she’d planned. What
could
she do? Of course! That’s it! She’d regroup and try harder. Knowing that hot biscuits are one of my favorite dishes and wanting desperately to start the day off on the right foot so it would be a
good
day, Anabel was up bright and early making delectable aromas flow from the kitchen.

In came big daddy with his “red pencil” nicely sharpened to begin his day by checking his wife’s performance. “Biscuits for breakfast! I believe you let ’em get a little bit too brown this morning, sugar.” I ate half the platter and left for work.

Anabel was a bit disappointed by this. Not exactly the response or the gratitude she’d hoped for. But it was nothing she couldn’t shake off. And after all, she could try harder next time, right? She had learned through many years of success at playing Lord of the Ring that she could do better the next time. There’s always a next time, and she always does better the next time. She’d learned that. She was capable. She could do it.

So she tried again the next day, this time turning the timer down thirty seconds to be sure they didn’t get too brown.

“Biscuits again!” said big daddy, his fingers still red from sharpening his pencil.

“Yes! All for you this morning, dear, to show you how much I love you!”

“Uh, I believe you took ’em out of the oven a little early this morning, honey. They look a little too light.” I ate half the platter again and left for work.

And then I recall a time, very early in our marriage, when we were still living in our little honeymoon apartment. One Saturday morning I took Anabel by the hand and led her into our living room. I held her hand, sighed a bit at what I felt I had to do for her own good, looked her in the eye, and gently said, “Honey, I wish you would learn to do just one thing well.” Can you believe it? I ought to have been whipped with a wet rope!