The person who loves everything you do today is often one “no” away from hating everything about you tomorrow. For this reason, dear Christian, keep your eyes squarely on Jesus, and never allow yourself to be charmed by the flatterer who fires compliments at you like rounds sent downrange. The best thing you can do is know exactly who you are in Christ and pray for the wisdom to spot the fans quickly, before they become your most brutal foes. Stop living for the approval of men. Stop needing people to like you. Stop getting drunk on the praise of people who have done absolutely nothing to earn your trust.
The flatterer is not interested in you. He is interested in what he can get from you, whether that is your influence, your position, your resources, your connections, or simply your approval. Whatever it is, he wants it, and he has figured out that the easiest way to get it is to keep telling you how wonderful you are. And the longer you entertain him, the more damage he will do when you finally have to tell him no. You will have to tell him no eventually, because he will never stop encroaching. He lives to take more ground, to gain more access, to ratchet up the praise a little higher every time. The flatterer does not have an off button.
That is why you should cut him off the moment you realize what is happening. If you do it early, while he has little access to your life, little influence over your decisions, and little reason to believe you owe him anything, you can keep the fallout small. Or you can wait. You can enjoy the compliments, laugh at his jokes, soak up his admiration, and let him convince you that he is your biggest supporter, right up until the day you find a thousand knives lodged squarely in your back.
Every compliment you greedily swallow is another hook he sets in your soul, and every time you reward his flattery with access, influence, or favor, you hand him a fresh place to set the next one. All the while, like a spider wrapping a fly, he is spinning his web around you. One compliment at a time. One favor at a time. One little expectation at a time. And the whole time you think you are being wrapped in genuine approval. You think you are appreciated. You think you have finally found someone who truly respects you.
Until you tell him no.
Suddenly the man who thought you could do no wrong has an entire encyclopedia of things you have done wrong. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Yesterday you were the greatest man he had ever known, and today you are apparently the worst. So what changed? Did your character collapse overnight? Did you become an entirely different person between Tuesday and Wednesday? No. You simply stopped being useful to him. Now the hooks begin to pull and the web begins to tighten, and the man who spent months telling everyone how wonderful you were is running all over town telling everyone how terrible you are.
Here is the part that ought to bother you most: you helped him do it. You let him get close. You let him purchase your affection with compliments. You let him build expectations he never should have been allowed to have. And now, when you finally try to set the good and healthy boundaries you should have set at the beginning, he treats your refusal like an egregious betrayal.
So listen. The flatterer you disappoint early may become your critic, but the flatterer you indulge over the long haul may become your executioner. Learn to recognize flattery quickly, and shut it down before it gets its hooks into you. Flattery is not genuine, and it is not love. It is manipulation wearing the sweater vest of affection. It is selfish ambition masquerading as innocent admiration. And it is an ugly parasite that feeds on your vanity until there is nothing left for it to consume.
