As Christians, we want to show love and make everybody happy.  But guess what?  You can’t.  Not while people are close minded to the fact that I make my dog wear pants.

Did you know that as Christians we should be constantly upsetting the people around us? This is one of those topics that you’re all like, “That Conrad so crazy. But just wait,  he’ll turn it around and then I’ll be all like… Snap! I get it now.”

Think about all the people around you.  Your parents, coworkers, classmates, kids, spouse, boy/girlfriend, church people, Ewoks, muggles. Now wouldn’t it be nice if you could please all of them all the time? 

That sounds like a great goal doesn’t it?  A very noble goal.  Because aren’t we supposed to be showing love?  And doesn’t showing love mean making people happy? But if making people happy is your ultimate goal, then you are totally wrong.

If your primary goal is to please people, then what isn’t your primary goal?  Pleasing God. Yes, we wish we could make people happy all the time, but we need to remember… people are sinful. And they’re selfish. Which also means people don’t always have God’s will in mind.

I’ll put it in a way that everyone can understand.  Does any kid want to go to school?  Does any kid want to do homework?  But as a loving parent you make them go to school and do homework – which upsets them. You can’t worry about pleasing them, because then you wouldn’t be pleasing God. That’s a simple situation where you’re only considering one party’s feelings.

But life gets much more difficult when your decisions affect a bunch of different parties.  Which job you take, who you marry, which college you go to, which house to buy, who’s family to spend Christmas at. In one decision you might please your spouse, but offend your parents and inconvenience your kids and annoy coworkers. Your boss wants you to work more hours, your spouse wants you to work less, but you can’t pay the bills and the kids all want phones so they can tell their friends pointless stuff… like a hundred times a day. You will upset someone. 

They all have their own interests in mind.  All those parties don’t see things from someone else’s point of view.  On top of that, most of them don’t see things from God’s point of view.

You are like a coach on a middle school basketball team.  Dealing with a bunch of kids and, even worse, their parents.  If the goal is to win the game, you’re going to make a lot of people upset. Billy, who can barely dribble the ball without drooling is going to be on the bench the entire game.  Billy and his parents are going to be upset.  So will Sylvester and his parents cause Sylvester sucks even worse than Billy.  Sylvester not only can barely run ten steps without throwing up, but he won’t shut up about how awesome Twilight is.

You can’t worry about all their feelings because your the goal is to win the game. If your goal wasn’t to win but to let everyone have fun, then Billy would play and the kids with talent will sit.

Your ultimate goal dictates who you upset.

But who is the only person you should be worried about upsetting? God. You can’t help it if someone is going to be offended by what you do.  Christ knew full well that when He came to earth that a lot of people would be upset, but He had His Father’s goal in mind. We should do the same.

Do not be a people pleaser, but a God pleaser. You know what?  I’ll put it in starker terms… Who do you serve?  People or God? Maybe you can explain to some of the people who are upset with your decision why you think it’s God’s will.  And maybe they’ll be cool with it.  But if not, too bad.

Is God pleased with you?  That is the ultimate goal. And I hope God is pleased with me about to change the channel on the TV while ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is on because I’m about to make three people very unhappy.

GAL 1:10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Take time to pray: Ask God for wisdom to see the areas of your life where you have human’s interests in mind over God’s. Today’s Fruit of the Spirit: Love.  A love for God so strong that it outweighs our desire for approval from others.