Luke 6:26, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
I was in a conversation the other day where we were talking about personal characteristics and I said that I have a tendency to be a people pleaser sometimes. I said this almost as a confession of something that I am trying to get past. To my surprise, everybody said the same thing. They all were people pleasers… Everybody wants to be loved, how we express our desire for that love is where we have differences. How far are you willing to go to be chosen by your peers? And then once they choose you, how far are you willing to go to keep being chosen by them?
Jesus preached some wise words in the sermon on the mount, but verses 22 and 26 speak especially well to this situation.
Luke 6:22, “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”
Luke 6:26, “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”
Blessed are you when people HATE you? Woe to you when people SPEAK WELL of you? I thought we were supposed to be doing all this good as Christians…wouldn’t that mean people should like us? According to this, not always.
True Christianity is not mainstream. I saw a quote online that said, “Biblical Christianity is not Popular and Popular Christianity is not Biblical.” Wow, that hits hard. Our Human Nature and our Spiritual Nature fight every day. Our desire to be “people pleasers” and our desire to truly follow God’s will cannot always coexist. Some people say that things are different now because we are not in the Bible era. If the Bible is true, then it is true for all time and the principles still stand. We have to be willing to stand up for Biblical truth and trust that if God says it is true (and the world says it’s not) then it is true.
We all want to be chosen. The truth in the Bible is that God already chose you when He sent His Son to die for you. That is a Biblical Truth, that will always be true. Where our daily choice comes in is asking yourself if you will look to an everchanging world and group of friends for security and comfort or to an ever-present, always loving, always true Father to choose and take care of you?
As you go through this next week, pray and ask God to give you the courage to stand up for what you believe is right, even if it means losing the adoration of some of your friends. Ask Him to give you the strength to choose truth over popularity.