Who Are You Out To Please?

As human beings we do it all the time. We try to make other people happy.

Have you ever watched a young child? "Look mommy! Look what I can do!"

They do it not so that the mother just looks, but so that they might hear the mother say, "Good job!" or "Look how fast you can run!" For the child, everything is about praise. They love to hear how good they are doing, and let's be honest...we as adults do it as well.

In our places of employment we work hard to get the raise and bonuses. We work hard to get our managers/bosses/CEO's whomever to notice us.

Have you seen the recent United States Postal Service commercial with the flat rate boxes and the man sitting at the desk? The USPS man is trying to convince the man sitting at the receptions desk that if he were to use the flat rate boxes, that the would be saving the company lots of money, and the man says, "This isn't my company! Why would I care?!" As he's saying this his boss steps out of an office next to his desk. The postal service hinting to the receptionist that his boss was right there said, "You mean, Why would I care NOT to save the company some money?"

The man's whole perspective changed when he realized who was there!

So often we forget as we serve the Lord, that He is there, regardless of whether we see him or not. Its so easy often times to try to please man, rather than God.

Today I was reading preparing for Sunday and I came across a verse in Galatians 1:10.
"For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."

That verse hit me like a ton of bricks. As I look back at my ministry that I have had thus far, I realize sadly that much of it has been man driven. Don't want to sing those songs, because someone might get upset, but we don't want to sing those songs, because that group will get upset. Don't want to do that on that night, because this group won't be able to come, but can't do it that night either, because someone else won't be able to come. If I do this this group will complain about it, but if I don't do it this group will!

I've come to the conclusion (over and over and over again) that I cannot please everyone. Truthfully when it comes to Christ, let's be honest...the pleasing of everyone doesn't even matter unless Christ himself is pleased and magnified!

Recently I've lost sight of that.

My favorite parable in the Bible is the story of the Master with his three servants and their allotments of silver and gold that he gave each of them. No where do we have recorded for us the servants wondering what the other servants might feel like if they were to use the money in a certain way, they were only concerned with what the master would think when he returned!

Whether you are a pastor, a deacon, a husband, a wife, a child, whomever you may be, we are all called to be servants of the living God (Romans 12:1-2) and we are not to worry about what others think, as long as we only worry about what the Master thinks.

We are to work hard, and do our very best, until the day that we hear the words from our Savior, "Well done thou good and faithful servant..."