Today’s Treasure: Galatians 1:10 (NIV) – “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
My earnest desire is to please God. What an awesome freedom – to be free from pleasing man!
Paul lets us know that we cannot be a servant of God and still seek to please man. Paul is letting us know that approval and servanthood are connected. How? When you seek to please man, you become a slave to the person(s) from whom you seek approval. When we seek to please God, we find ourselves serving Him; being obedient to His call; following His direction. You never know, you may find that you have accidentally pleased others in the process.
We find in verse 10 that before Paul’s conversion, he was a man-pleaser. His conversion was not a change for the worse, but a change for the better. It was not that he had begun to be a man-pleaser since his conversion, but that he had ceased to be so. As a zealous Pharisee he was a man-pleaser. Had he not been converted, he would still be a man-pleaser.
Since your conversion, are you still trying to please man? I must be honest, YES, I am. At times, I find that I am more concerned about what others will think than I am about what God has called me to do. This is a daily struggle. I daily ask God to help me get over people. I do not want to be a slave to what others think of me, especially when it comes to doing the will of God for my life. As we grow in this study and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we must become totally free from pleasing man. We must seek to please the one who made us and knows all about us; the one who knows our end from our beginning; the one who knew when we would mess up, and yet gives us grace – we must please Christ!
For you, what would it mean to seek only God’s approval?
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