Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father give us opportunities to invite others into his family! Father, you know your children, you know your people, even before they answer your call, you know them. Help us to trust your knowing, to trust your grace, to trust your control over all things. Help us to lay down our every-day lives, our preferences and agendas and desires, for the purpose of inviting others into your family. Father, I do not know exactly why you have chosen to work this way, but you have. Help us to rejoice and obey! In the name of your son Jesus and by your Spirit within us, help us to live out the Gospel in our every-day lives!
Your Morning Song: "Less Like Me" by Zach Williams
Your Morning Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
Should we care about what others think of us? Or what God thinks of us? Should we try to please others? Or please God?
Yes.
I've heard these kinds of questions before. And there is some value in asking these, for those of us struggling with our prime, ultimate motivation. But instead of an either or, "others or God?" these verses from Paul focuses on prioritizing the two.
As a child of God, chasing after Christ-like-ness (Christian = little Christ), our prime, ultimate desire is to please God. And what pleases God is our, "not seeking our own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved."
In being uncompromising in our ultimate, prime motivation, anything and everything else becomes leverage for the sharing of the Gospel, the Good News of Christ and his kingdom.
How willing are we to set aside our agendas, our preferences, our traditions, our opinions, our desires, to please others in a way that clears a path for them to receive Jesus's loving invitation? How many times have we made it harder for others to hear Jesus's invitation?
The distinction is this. If we please others just to make ourselves feel better with no thought of God's mission, that is wrong. But if we please others for the purpose of pleasing God by seeking out his children, that could not be more right.
How eager are we to please others in order to please God? Or are we lost in the confusion of thinking it has to be one or the other?
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