Read: Matthew 25:14-30
One of the biggest reasons that people-pleasing is such an easy trap to fall into is because while God’s opinion matters, the opinions of other people feel more immediate.
- We can’t see God’s face right now when we choose to be generous towards others, but we can see people’s faces if they see our generosity.
- You can’t experience Heaven cheering you on when you choose to do life God’s way, but you can experience the sense of pride when a lot of people like our latest picture of your cat on social media.
- We can’t hear God audibly tell us that he’s proud of us right now, but we can hear it in someone else’s voice when we let them down.
God’s opinion matters, but the opinions of others can seem so loud because we experience them here and now.
That’s why the final strategy for defeating people pleasing is to keep an eternal perspective.
One of the greatest, most memorable parables Jesus ever told is found in Matthew 25, when a master leaves and gives his money to three servants to watch over and grow (by the way, a “talent” was an amount of currency in those days, and it was a LOT of money) .
When the master returns, the final servant fails to do anything with the money he had been called to watch over, so the master is mad with this “wicked, lazy servant”. However, the first two servants received a much different response from their master. They had been wise with the money and used it to grow the master’s investment, so the master responds with, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Now, the point of this parable isn’t to give you advice on how to invest your 401k. The point is to live with that endgame in mind. Because if you get to the end of your life and God says to you in Heaven, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” then you won’t care how popular you were on earth, how attractive you were, how many friends you had, or if you impressed people.
Live for your Audience of One today so that one day you can hear those words too: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”