“Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.” Ephesians 6:6 NIV
How do you behave when no one is looking? I believe that how you behave when you are alone and no one can see you or will know what you are doing, is the ‘real’ you, the way you really feel about life and your circumstances in your heart. It is funny to say ‘when you are alone’ because we are never truly alone, we always have God with us.
Paul is addressing servants in this verse, but I believe that Paul is also talking about where our hearts belong. Obviously as a servant, the person is expected to do what they are to do no matter if the master is there or not. However, if we look deeper in this verse, Paul is saying that they are to be doing the will of God which is to obey and do what they are to do not out of fear of the master but out of respect for God.
If our hearts are full of fear of our boss or others being disappointed in us, then pleasing them is where we will place our time and effort. When we are afraid to offend another person by not doing what they ask us to do or we only do something so that the other person is happy, then we are a people-pleaser and that is where our heart belongs – pleasing people.
When our focus becomes listening to God and following through with what He is directing us to do, when we want to do what we do to honor and glorify God with it, then we are a Christ-pleaser. Our heart belongs to God. We are to follow authority and do what we are instructed to do, I am not saying to buck authority. I am also not saying that we should not do things to help others, to make sure their needs are met or not do things because it will please them. What I am saying is that our motives are very important.
When our motive is to make sure that everyone around us likes us because we do what they want even if we know it is wrong, then our motive is to win the favor of people not God. When our motive is to make sure that we are doing what we believe we are being directed by God to do, which sometimes can offend someone because we are not behaving the way they want us to behave, our motive is to win the favor of God.
So my question for everyone today is…….what is your motive – to win the favor of people or of God?