Pleasing People or Serving Christ?

In today’s podcast, Pastor Priji talks about leadership on how to become effective in our pursuit of creating an impact no matter where you have been positioned.

This podcast is a repost, was originally published on May 19, 2018.

Transcript:

Today we would be discussing about Leadership, ‘Ways to become effective in our pursuit of creating an impact’.

The influence God has given in different spheres of life are not to be taken granted, God would want us to bring about a certain level of excellency in ways of doing things. We have been doing the study guide of the book ‘Lead Like Jesus’ by Blanchard and Hodges.

Aspirations of a leader are understood by know you have God at the center of everything that you do.

That would mean, not just being a leader at church, but in any place God has put you in, be it, motherhood, marriage, at corporate, with friends. People gravitate towards a man/woman who is filled by God and the spirit of God.

May this conversation help you fix areas in your life. Here are a few questions for you:

Question 1: Who do you worship/adore/give a listening ear?

If you are always thinking about a leader or a particular pastor you want to please, or do something for that’s something you are worshiping.

Worship can be defined as – Anything that you give excessive attention to!

Example: TV programs, movies, children (these are things that aren’t exclusively sinful but may lead to sin.)

Yet, many times leaders worship idols. When you worship money, power, position; it fails you as a leader.

When you worship anything but God, it has the power to trap you and disconnect you from the creative leader that’s Jesus!

Worshiping someone makes you like the person.

Question 2: What is your security?/ Where is your self-worth?

So often, as leaders, our security lies in our jobs or people that look upto us (our followers). The virtual world we live in, makes us believe our security comes in the number of friends we have on Facebook and self-worth comes from the number of followers we have on Instagram/Twitter.

Imagine Jesus saying, He feels successful because of preaching to thousand people, multiplied bread and fish. If He thought that way, when He hung on the cross He would have felt like a failure. Jesus’ sense of security was not in the opinions or the work what people did. His self-worth came from what God had proclaimed about Him.

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 17:5 NKJV)

Jesus’ security was in the fact, He was going to Heaven. He was not taken aback by the opinion of general public.
Whereas, there are leaders who are constantly fishing for appreciation, opinions or suggestions or anything that is positive.

But, when you are out there fishing for these good opinions about you; if they come naturally you can praise God about it. But, when you fish for them, you become captive to what people say about you.

As leaders, we need to disconnect from the opinions of people on a daily basis and put our security and our selfworth on nothing but Jesus.

Question 3: Who is your audience/ judge/ has the final?

Is it the church board, your family members or people around you?

Often, we do things for peoples appreciation. You don’t need anyone’s approval apart from God in all that you do.
Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. (Galatians 1:10 NLT)

If pleasing people is your goal, you can’t be a servant of Christ. Servants of Christ may have a good number following, but they can’t keep running after the applause of men.

The Bible says in Proverbs 29:25 NLT – Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the LORD means safety.
Know that you have one Master to worship and your sense of security comes from what Jesus said.

(Isaiah 54:17 NLT) – But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you.

(Matthew 28:20 NLT) – teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Your self-worth comes from Jesus calling you His child.

Keeping Galatian 1:10 as the motto of life and seek His approval gives you assurance you are on the right path!