So we make it our goal to please him. 2 Corinthians 5:9
I love to watch my great-granddaughter Kaydence. She knows what she wants. She’s happy, ecstatic really, when she gets it and she’s upset when she doesn’t. Life at 18 months is pretty simple. But you can begin to see traces of complexity. She is beginning to want to please others. She loves to dance around, but she’s starting to like the attention it gets her. She’s starting down the road that leads to acting to please others. That’s a good thing. A step in the process of maturing. We are meant to move from being self pleasers to being unselfish people with a desire to give pleasure to others.
But there is a further step in maturing, getting to the point when our principal motivation is to please God. The child of God lives to put a smile on the face of God. It’s a high place of maturity and a difficult place to stay. We keep slipping back into a life of self pleasing or people pleasing.
No one likes a self pleaser. After all they’re selfish. Thinking mainly of their own desires, they go through life demanding their rights. Humanists seem to think that’s really the ideal. Be your own person. You are the most important person in your life. I guess it’s a satisfying but lonely way to go through life.
Most of us like to think we put others first. That we are not selfish, but selfless. Many of the people we consider “good” fall into this category. These folks are easy to love. They are quick to do for others, to volunteer, to bring joy where they go. But watch out for these guys. Eventually they tire of giving, giving, giving. They begin to feel put upon. No one appreciates all they do. The joy of serving can become a treadmill of being tread upon.
The real joyful people are the God pleasers. They are usually great to be around. They are living the life they were created to live. They live for God. That’s usually a good thing for the people who live around them, because people who love God love other people and will do practically anything for them. What’s even better is they don’t seem to care if you appreciate what they do. They’re not doing it for you. They’re doing it for Him.
Be careful around these God pleasers. They love you. But they love you like God loves you. They love you enough to want the best for you even if it means telling you things you don’t like to hear. They sometimes don’t do the things for you that you would like them to, because they know it’s better for you if you do them yourself. Sometimes they aren’t as much fun as people pleasers, but in the long run they are better lovers.
I pray that Kaydence will learn to love God and to be a God pleaser and that I will be a God pleaser more of the time than I’m a self pleaser or a people pleaser. After all that’s the only way to really
Be blessed.
Nick
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