You absolutely love it when someone gives you a compliment. In fact, compliments are in short supply and their need is in great demand. You feel good all over when someone gives you a good, heart-felt compliment. In light of a good compliment you can live on cloud nine for several days.
A compliment is sincere and much needed, but what about someone who showers you with compliments to get on your best side? It is no longer sincere, but is used to get you to do something for them. You get a feeling that their abundance of compliments and their exaggerated compliments have something behind the compliments that are merely stated. You may even ask yourself, “What do you want from me?” You feel they are getting ready to take advantage of you. You call those types of compliments, flattery.
Flattery is all good and well, as long as you just listen to it and do not let it go to your head. John Billings has some wise words about flattery, when he said: “Flattery is like cologne water—to be smelled, not swallowed.” Let those words sink in. If you allow flattery to be swallowed, vice smelled, you start down a road where the person who flatters you will more than likely use you for their purposes. After they get through using you for their purposes, they will toss you aside. To keep from going down that path, learn to not take flattery too seriously.
The Bible warns Christians not to listen to people who use flattery, “For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Jesus Christ but of their own appetites, and by their sooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting” (Rom. 16:18). Notice, that flattery will “deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” Yes, flattery can only be used against you when you are “unsuspecting.” So, learn to notice when someone is flattering you in order that they will not “deceive” you. To keep from being deceived, requires that you be on the alert to people who use flattery to get on your good side. Back in verse 17 of chapter 16 in Romans, the remedy for keeping from allowing flattery to affect you is given: “keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances.” People who use flattery will cause problems for the people that are around them.
Beware of the flowery compliment; like John Billings said— “flattery is…to be smelled not swallowed.”
