Him Alone!

“Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him” Deut.13:4

As a Pastor I know I cannot please everyone. Recurrently people say to me, this person or that group of people is not happy with you. I just laugh and move on. If I have done something wrong, I do not have any issues apologizing and I will apologize. But I do not seek to please everyone because I simply cannot. You cannot please everybody no matter how hard you try, it is just not possible. Even God cannot please everybody! You ask God to bless you and He does. Then you go out, you see someone driving a more expensive car than yours, and you begin to query God for not blessing you as much as that person. God is saying, you even have more than that person but you just don’t know it. So you need to resolve who you are trying to please because you cannot please everyone. You and I need to resolve it in our hearts that we are only capable of pleasing one person and that is God. This truth shocks a lot of married people when we are in counseling. I say to the couples, you are incapable of totally pleasing your spouse. Let me pause and allow this revelation sink in. You are incapable of totally pleasing your spouse because your spouse is human. Human beings are defective so even when you have done everything, the fallen nature can still make them point out areas you did not cover. I think it was one of the old legendary musicians that said there is nothing – no intelligence, or deployment of skills that can achieve pleasing everyone. Understand that you cannot please everyone.

I am not saying that you should not seek to please your spouse. But rather when you are serving your spouse, do it as though it is unto the Lord because that is when you can have fulfillment. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” Eph.5:21-22 & 25. So submitting to your husband is not about him but unto the Lord. Some lady said, you don’t understand this man is a rascal. In other words, how can you ask me to submit to him? I said, you are doing it as unto the Lord, it is pleasing to God. A man said to me, tell my wife to submit to me then I will show her love like she has never tasted before. The point is this; you love your spouse as unto the Lord. A time will come when he or she may not even appreciate it. So if you are depending on that, you will be stressed and depressed. But you do it as unto the Lord.

Prayer: Father, I ask for the grace to act only as unto You in my relationships, my work, my serving, my parenting, in Jesus Name.