Sometimes people criticize me for trying to make myself look good or seem like an angel when I’m not. Well, can you blame me when I’ve been the bad guy my entire life? Of course I want a better reputation than the one I currently have. I try not to do it at the expense of other people, where I make them look bad so that I’ll look good, but really I shouldn’t be worried about what people think in the first place. I know it would help if I stopped sinning in front of the entire world, but it really doesn’t help when everyone wants to prevent you from becoming anything other than the bad guy, because none of this works and no one benefits from me being the good guy. You know Peter was often controlled by other people’s thoughts and opinions. He denied his Lord when it wasn’t popular to be associated with him. And he even tried to please the Judaizers by submitting to their dietary laws when he was the one who spread this revelation that he himself received from God, who told him those laws no longer applied. All of this just so that he could avoid controversy. He should have been the one who had the strongest convictions about all of this since it was God who spoke to him directly. The lesson here is: Get your worth from God, not other people’s opinions. Will you believe what the headlines say about you or what God says about you?