Stop it!

Stop it! You Can’t Please Them.

“We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29)

 

A motivational force that drives a person to make decisions based solely on the level of approval they believe they will receive is defined as people-pleasing. Here are some others that are related to people-pleasing; codependency and enabling; now you may not realize this, but within a biblical framework, people-pleasing borders on idolatry.

Those that are people-pleasers have learned that it feels good to be liked by others, so in order to get the most approval, they steer their words and actions that direction. People-pleasers, on the surface, appear to be selfless, kind, and generous. However, that is not the case beneath the surface, they are desperately insecure and believe that approval equals value. Eventually they find that trying to please people all the time is not only exhausting, it is impossible. What amazes me most about some people-pleasers is when they start manipulating relationships and situations just so they can feel the rush of satisfaction associated with creating pleasant responses in others. So the term people-pleaser could very well be a misnomer. In many cases, people-pleasers strive to please everyone because they are trying to please themselves.

Did you not know that by nature, some people are more prone to people-pleasing. Those that are compliant, sensitive types are often extremely aware of the responses of other people, so to avoid negative feedback they  gauge their words and choices. They sometimes view this trait as positive, comparing their people-pleasing with the selfless actions of the Lord (Acts 10:38 ...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him). 

But like me make this clear, the difference between Jesus’ unselfish acts of service and the actions of a people-pleaser is motive. Jesus’ life was lived to glorify and obey His heavenly Father (John 8:29 “And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him”). Jesus loved, Jesus gave, and Jesus served people, but He was also not afraid to say what needed to be said, even when people got angry with Him. He did care about how they felt about the truth. For the people’s hypocrisy and lack of faith, He often rebuked people in public (Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves”). Jesus seemed to care little about how well His audience would receive His words because He was not trying to people-please them. Even though He knew it was going to lead to His death, He spoke exactly what needed to be said. Jesus was the opposite of a people-pleaser. 

Did you know that peopling people can become a sinful habit? Oh yes! But you can take steps to stop a habit of pleasing people by first acknowledging it as sin. And I’m not talking about your acts of service that pleases people in a negative way. Acts of service is a gift and when it is done to bring glory to God, people can’t help but to be pleased. 

When popularity is your guiding force, it becomes idolatry because you have switched gods. The moment you allow anything to control you other than the Holy Spirit, your heart have erected a shrine to a competing god (Galatians 5:16, 25 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh”. 25 “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit”). 

Rest assured, you will slide into error every time when you seek praises from a fallible human being rather than seeking God’s approval. Being a people-pleaser can lean to John 12:43 says, even in Jesus’ day, some people believed His message but refused to follow Him because “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God”.  Do you knot know that when you allow people-pleasing to dictate your choices it can lead to eternal separation from God.

The moment you recognize your people-pleasing inclinations as sinful, stop it, repent of them, and then find an alternate motivation. The Bible tells us that our motives in everything should be to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”). Developing an intimate relationship with God through our saving faith in Jesus, He then becomes our focus. Our allegiance then switches from self-worshiping to God-worshiping. 

No longer pleasing ourselves or others, but pleasing God is the goal (Colossians 1:10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;). There is no greater feeling than the freedom of breaking the vise-like grip that people-pleasing has on our lives. Rather than trying to please the voices of hundreds, we need only to listen to One and He says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). At the end of the day, only one question is relevant to a believer: “Lord, was I as pleasing to you today?” And if His answer is “yes”, that’s when we find our validation in who He says we are.

Guard your hearts against covetousness. This is another important step in overcoming an addiction to people-pleasing. I find that envy feeds people-pleasing when one covets the approval or popularity of someone else. People-pleasing based on envy is more prevalent than we realize just look at teenagers in how they idolize rap stars, movie stars and athletes, but their not alone, there are plenty of adults that are guilty of this as well, and if we can be honest, most of us can find traces of it somewhere in our lives.

There are many things that can prevent us from being all that God has called us to be and people-pleasing is certainly on that list. People-pleasing silences us when we should speak up and it threatens us when we do speak up. In 2 Timothy 4:3 is a forecast of an insidious form of people-pleasing in the church today: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear”. 

It’s a sad fact that many preachers today whose desire is to draw crowds and sell books cultivate the sin of people-pleasing and they call it “ministry”. Hear me good on this, drawing crowds is not a sin, that’s not the problem the problem is when the motivation is to please people and not God. Think on this, If the apostles had been people-pleasers, they would never have been martyred for their faith.

The Bible is very clear when it said that we cannot serve two masters in Matthew 6:24. There is no way that we can be fully devoted to the gospel of Christ and also fully devoted to the approval of other people. It just will not merge well. This could very well be why Jesus made discipleship such a narrow road. He said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me”. A great way to deny ourselves is crucifying our need to people like us by people-pleasing listen to what Paul said about it in 1 Thessalonians 2:3-5 “For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4. but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness; and in Galatians 1:10 says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ”.

Peter said it best when he said, “We ought to obey God rather than men!.” This wasn’t in no way saying to disrespect those in leadership. Let me help as I close, it is not your job to make people happy. Rather, you are to live the best that you can be all that God wants you to be. Serve the Lord in every way He calls you, die daily to your own selfish desires, and receive your reward from Him. And when that is your life goal, then and only then will you stop being a people-pleaser.

Are you a people-pleaser? Have you been trying to please all the people? Then I say stop it! Start today living your life focusing on what God wants you to be, not what others want you to be. I would like to offer you an opportunity to give your life to Christ today, stop being a people-pleaser and be a God-pleaser. Be sure to pick up a copy of my new book Pathway to Christ.

Life's Word Ministry