People Pleasing

Galatians 1:10 (NLT) - “Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.”      Everyone likes to be appreciated and loved. It is not atypical for someone to desire to be in good standing with family, friends, co-workers and other people in general. None of us can deny that at some point or another it felt good when we heard someone say complimentary things about us because of something we did or accomplished. The warning comes when we do activities or acts of kindness just to get the applause and cheers of the crowd. When we seek to get accolades from man, we soon learn that those cheers are hollow and short-lived. Even Jesus knew what it was like to be loved and adored with shouts of praise at the beginning of the week; only to be spat upon, hit and cursed by week’s end. How quickly cheers of ‘Hosanna’,’ Hosanna’ turned to ‘crucify him’,’ crucify him’.
      We were created to praise and glorify God and in doing so our actions may lead others to appreciate our efforts; however that should never be our primary motivation. God looks at our hearts and judges our incentives. Today focus on why you do certain actions. Study your motivations and evaluate if you do things because you have genuine empathy for the situation or is it just routine, mundane and what others expect you to do as a people pleaser. If helping others is not deeply rooted in God’s grace and mercy the Holy Spirit will reveal this to you and will guide you in how to turn from being a people pleaser to a man or woman after God’s own heart.      Every day is a good day it is up to us to make it a GREAT day. Be blessed! Rev. Dr. JoAnn