Throw Back Thursday - Healing Our Souls from 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.
Healing needs to occur when we seek to get accolades from people and soon
learn that those cheers are hollow and short-lived. When the hurt and
disappointments of empty compliments ravage our souls, we must seek to abandon
activities that pump up our emotions yet leave our souls deflated. 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 power-filled day. Don’t be distracted; stay focused on your
purpose! Be blessed! Dr. JoAnn
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