Again, this is something I have always thought I had on lock. I thought I was the master of looking out for others. In reality I was a people pleaser. Being a people pleaser is selfishness disguised as looking out for others. I was always constantly looking for others approval. I was constantly looking for others to be pleased with me. This meant that I constantly set myself up to fail because you can't always please others. When I was trying to make everyone else happy, I was really just looking out for myself. I was searching for my own happiness but to no avail.
My thinking was totally backwards. When I try to please others so that they will like me, everyone will be let down. But when I stop thinking of myself, put my eyes on Jesus, let Him live through me and look out for others interests, I stop focusing on me. My focus is Christ and letting Him live through me. I am naturally selfish. In my own strength, I cannot look out for others interests. I cannot be humble. But when it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, the pressure to strive to please others is off of me. God's glory is secured. I am weak but His strength is made perfect in my weakness because He can prove His strength in a weak vessel. If this is how I live, people will look at me, but not see me; they will see God. The things that He will do through me in His power will be obvious that I could have never have accomplished them on my own.
Something that I struggle with is being happy for someone when something good happens to them but something hard happens to me. I get caught up in my emotions and I put my interests above theirs. I focus on myself. If I get my eyes off of myself and my situation and rejoiced with them, it would be a lot easier to deal with my situation anyways. Oh, the irony.
Notice that it doesn't say, "Hate yourself and never take care of yourself." It just says to look out also for others interests, and not only for my interests. I need to give their interests more value than my own(tying in yesterday's verse). I need to not get so caught up in my own circumstances and emotions that I don't pay attention to the needs of others.
Application:
Today, I will pray for a true understanding of humility and that God would allow me to see other's needs ahead of my own. I will strive to seek and cease every opportunity to serve others and take care of others(looking out for their interests) even if that just means seeing that they are having a hard time and need someone to pray for them and encourage them.
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