New Year Post: Am I Stuck With the Desire to Please Everyone?

As 2017 starts, I want to ask myself this question, "Am I stuck with the mentality that I must please eveyrone?" It's a struggle within myself every now and then. I get too easily angry whenever somebody makes fun of my Christian faith, when I'm accused of sins I didn't commit or when somebody misrepresents me. I seldom feel like I want to get even and beat the person up or get revenge instead of asking God to forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. When I feel like I have the desire to get even with people who are unkind to me or make fun of my Christian beliefs then I may be guilty of my desire to please everybody. As long as I'm rooted in my pride then I'm going to be plagued with the desire to please everyone and not to forgive the offender.

There's one sad truth in life that nobody can please everybody. If the unsaved people can't please everyone then the saved child of God can't expect to please everybody either. It's sometimes horrifying to me when it's an unbeliever who tells me that I can't expect to please everyone. I even tend to think that only if I were perfect then everyone would love me. Guess what? Jesus lived the perfect life as a man (because He's God in the flesh) and most of the world hates Him. They'd settle for a Jesus that's not of the Bible than the biblical Jesus. God is perfect yet a lot of people hate Him. Jesus is the perfect King that the world needs but the world rejects Him. If the perfect Jesus was rejected then I shouldn't expect that becoming perfect will get me accepted by this imperfect world. 

This doesn't mean that I'm going to follow my heart or just "live my life" as the heathen would tell me. Instead, I'm called to follow what God has put in my heart ever since I got saved and live the life He wants me to live. Why should I care about what the sinful world thinks about me when their mentality is different from mine? John 15:18-19 tells Christians that they're not of the world. James 4:4 also says that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Since I'm no longer God's enemy then why should I expect the world to love me? It's just impossible. I can't be faithful to God and popular with the world at the same time. One makes me the world's enemy the other makes me God's enemy.

Matthew 16:26 and Mark 8:36 address this sad question, "What will it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?". It won't do any good to have billions of people adore me everywhere when I'm just heading towards Hell. The comforts of this world are indeed fleeting as the wind. Life is just like a vapor. Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes expressing how much of a fool he was chasing wealth. When I read Ecclesiastes the more I see that the world is just a passing thing. Everything is just passing. I see everything perish around me so why should I keep pursuing material wealth over God? While it's definitely not wrong to be rich but it's definitely wrong to serve God. Money is a good servant but a terrible master. God ordained money for His glory and man as its master not the other way around. 

The Christian's new nature desires to please God. The more I realize that I'm trying to please everyone the more I feel the Father's loving chastising. Why should I work to please everyone or to get their praises when I'm told to do good works so God will be glorified? The Christian life is all about Soli Deo Gloria or Glory to God Alone not Glory to Self Alone. There's really no reason why I should try to please everyone because it's all about doing what's right because God said it and not as someone who just does good to fill up one's pride.