Should you please people or please God?

Well, it’s not as simple of as answer as you think. Sure, we need to please God. That’s non-negotiable. But God always considers others.

“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second command is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There are no commands more important than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)

These verses command us to love God and love people. Is there a difference between love and pleasing…both God and others? Well, I suppose it helps to know how we define pleasing. If it means doing whatever they want, letting others make the decision of what “best” is, pleasing others won’t work, because it’s a moving target. You can work to please others every moment from now until the end of your life, but you won’t be able to do it. As you relate to more and more people, the guidelines of pleasing others will change. Even what pleases one person in one season of life will shift in another season. We change, and so do our preferences. We need a more solid standard.

God is the solid standard.

God doesn’t change. His standards don’t change. We learn more about his standards and how to meet them as we grow, but it’s God who changes us, not us who change him.

It’s not about choosing between pleasing God and pleasing people. One takes care of the other. When we strive to please God, because of who he is, others are considered as well. We might not be pleasing them by their own standards, but pleasing them by honoring God in our relationships is much better anyway. Pleasing God and pleasing people don’t ignore one or the other. When we focus on God, one considers the other.

How can you know you’re becoming who you’re supposed to be? How do you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing when you need to be doing it?

Please God.