Gal. 1:10 If You Please, Who Do You Please? - BLOGGING THE BIBLE- JournalHome.com

9/14/2010 - Gal. 1:10 If You Please, Who Do You Please?

Posted in Unspecified

SCRIPTURE: Gal. 1:10 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.

OBSERVATION: This statement is so couter to the culture that we live in. It is also, unfortunately, counter to the way we typically view life. So often we feel like, if we are good people, that we will live our lives trying to please others. Here Paul tells us that this motivation is acutally counter to being a servant of God. It suggest a whole different way of evaluating our life, our choices and our definition of success.

APPLICATION: There was a time in my life where I could truly say that pleasing others was utterly not my goal in life. Unfortunately, I discovered that my deepest motivation was not to simply please God (although I was trying to do that as well) but to prove to the nay sayers that, sooner or later, I would be proved to be right.
I am now at a place in my life where I must stay on alert against sliding into being a people pleaser. I love people. I want to serve people but, sometimes, my service orientation leads me to try to please people in ways that God is not telling me to do. I need to remember that it is sometimes possible to deeply disappoint people and yet to be, at the same time, a faithful servant of God.

PRAYER: Increase my love, devotion and commitment to serve Your people. You love them. You serve them. You meet their needs and I want to be like you. Help me Lord, though, to never lose sight of whose servant I am--Yours and Yours alone.

Share |