Who Are You Living For?

Someone once said, “At twenty, we worry what everyone thinks of us.  At forty, we don’t care what anyone thinks of us.  At sixty, we realize no one was even thinking of us!”  If we are honest with ourselves, we spend plenty of time worrying about what others are thinking and seeking to please them.  We run the risk of being less ‘real’ about who we are in order to meet the expectations of those around us.

Would you admit to being a people pleaser?  Here are some signs that you may fit into that category:

   1) You are often motivated by a sense of duty and obligation rather than desire.

   2) You’re afraid what people will think if you don’t meet their expectations.

   3) You aren’t completely truthful with others about who you really are.

   4) You say you like things that you really don’t like.

Winston Churchill was a great model for being oblivious to public opinion.  The Puritans, though disliked by many, are admired for their conviction-driven lifestyles.  They were tightly focused in the belief that all of life was to be lived “By faith, to the glory of God!”  They lived to please the Father and no one else.

John the Baptist was a great example of living before an Audience of One.  He was a radical man of God.  He didn’t feel the need to fit in, be popular, or please people.  His clothing of camel hair was out of fashion, and his call to repentance did not make the Pharisees and Sadducees very happy.

“John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:4-9)

Would you join me in praying for a renewed passion to live before an audience of One, honoring God, regardless of the cost?

Oswald Chambers once said, “If I love Jesus personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though they treat me like a doormat.”