A Very Small Thing

This past week I got to go to Cincinnati with my family. We got to do a lot of amazing things while we were there like going to the 3rd highest rated amusement park in the country (King's Island) and the #1 zoo in the country (The Columbus Zoo). As my family and I walked around these places filled with people, I noticed something going on in my heart...I wanted to be liked, accepted, thought well of by all these people that I didn't even know!

I am naturally a people pleaser. I don't like it when people are upset with me and I always want people to like me and accept me. But there is a huge problem...if I follow and obey Christ, I won't be accepted and liked by most people because most people don't accept and like Christ; in fact they hate Him. What I had fallen into was valuing the opinions of men higher than the opinion of God.

God started to convict me of this and I began to repent...but He wasn't done. On our way back from Cincinnati we got to visit a church in Louisville and the pastor got up and preached on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5. In this passage Paul tells the church of Corinth that (along with many other things) he considers it a very small thing to be examined or judged by them or any human because God is His ultimate judge. Now Paul is not saying that he considers it a small thing when someone brings a sin of his to his attention...in fact in the very next chapter he tells the church to judge and kick a man out of the congregation who was in sin. What he is saying is that it isn't a big deal if people don't think highly of him because of what he looks like or how he speaks or you fill in the blank. It wasn't a big deal because he had been accepted by God in Christ and was now working through the Spirit to be faithful to do all that God had for him to do. If people thought less of Him for this...no big deal! Needless to say I needed to hear this, and maybe you do too!

Knowing that God is our judge frees us to consider the approval of man a very small thing. If you are in Christ you are accepted by God! Now strive to obey God in everything submitting to every whim of His will and know that it isn't a bid deal what people think of you for it.

For the glory of God

Seth