Day 2620 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

There is a seemingly endless supply of distractions in this place. Many we know and realize. Some we may have an idea. But a few are things that we would never consider being counterproductive. Personally speaking, I think that this whole mindset that has people living in fear of what others think is one of the biggest wastes of time and pointless distractions that there is. Yet it's one that is more common and more popular than we may realize. And it's also one that we can come up with plenty of excuses to help seem necessary.

After all, the Bible tells us to love one another. It tells us to humbly put others before ourselves. It asks us to wash one another's feet. It tells us to submit ourselves to worldly authorities. It gives us the opportunity to become fishers of men. So a lot of who we're called to be and what we're called to do is in fact focused on those around us. But where we run into a problem is when we get lost in the purpose of it all. And that's where all of this human-centered kind of living has become a huge stumbling block.

The Bible calls us to put others before ourselves, not before Him.

While much of what we're called to do is done to help those around us, it's done to serve our Father above. It's a pretty blurry line! And it's one that we quickly fall over to the wrong side of pretty easily. Our focus is serving God first and foremost. To give our lives to Him for Him to use as He sees fit. To use the gifts, abilities, and opportunities that He's given us to help complete the task that we have in sharing the Gospel with the world we're living in. To make sure that everything we say, everything we think, and everything we do all points to Him and Him alone.

A lot of what we're called to do does involve humanity. How could it not? But our focus is not humanity. It's sharing God with humanity. It's not catering to those around us. It's helping those around us come to see the life-altering power in God's word. It's not living to make others like us so that we can reach more of them and do a better job of sharing the Gospel. It's sharing the Gospel while holding ourselves to a higher standard than much of this world has settled for so that those who can still be saved by hearing His message can also see that a life surrendered to Him really is vastly different than how this world does things.

The underlying issue that we need to resolve is where we're trying to find our peace. Who are we serving? Who is our master? Where is our focus? Where or to whom have we given our hearts? When we live in fear of those around us and give them the power to dictate what we do and determine how we do it so as to avoid their rejection and or retaliation, that clearly means that at least a little bit of our hearts is set on catering to how this world wants things done. It shows that we're giving a little too much power to humanity, and all of that power should be left in God's hands alone.

It shows that we’re trying to please two masters, and friends, we can’t put humanity on equal-footing with God!

One of the biggest reasons/excuses for giving those around us the power to tweak how we do what we do is that we claim to be trying to do what God has called us to do in a peaceful and loving manner. We don't want to turn people away. We don’t want to offend them, hurt their feelings, or cause them to hate us and therefore ignore the message we're trying to share and the work we're trying to do. But that's where we start tripping over that fine line into putting man before God. Simply put, we can't fear God and fear mankind at the same time. And trying to do so will only mean that we're doing neither, or that we're doing both very poorly.

Friends, what I'm getting at is that we have to choose between peace and appeasement. Appeasing those around us by doing what they want us to do or altering how we do what we're called to do in order to keep from hurting their feelings or facing their hatred will require us to give them ground that God alone should have in our lives. We all want peace. I get that. But true peace is only found when we seek God will all our heart. We have to go all in on following and serving Him. We have to give Him everything. And that means that the way that humanity wants us to do things simply has no room in our lives. It can’t, because if it does, then God doesn’t have our whole heart.

We can't give this world any power or control or say over who we are or what we do or how we do it. We are here to serve God. And in the process, we will help those around us because He is a loving Father who is reaching out through the smoke of sin and wickedness to lead folks back to Him through His message of love and forgiveness. We can't get in the way and compromise that by giving humanity more ground than it has. God has asked us to seek Him with everything we have. We can't take a little bit back so that we can give it to the world around us so that they'll like us more and we can have a bit of peace during our time here.

So again, where are we trying to find our peace? Is it through appeasing mankind and avoiding the wrath of the hatred that this place runs on? Is it in living to make people like us by doing or saying only what they'll allow? Or are we looking for peace in the confidence that comes only from a life completely, fully, totally surrendered to God? If we're to truly surrender everything to Him, then there's simply no room for worldly concerns.

I guess the better question would be who is on the throne in our lives? God or humanity? And if God's on the throne, and if our hearts on fully set on serving Him, and if our peace is found in His promises, then I guess the world around us will just have to deal with what they get from us. Either way, we just can't live to serve two masters, accomplish two opposing goals, or seek two different kinds of peace. We are going to have to choose, because it we don't, then we’ll never find our peace. And we’ll never find our purpose either.

The bottom line is that we won’t find God if we spend any amount of time focusing on humanity or the world around us. We only find Him when we go all-in and give Him everything we have. And we only find His peace when we build our lives on His calling to serve Him alone. Many of us claim to be seeking God, but just how desperately? If we’re still worried in any way about what mankind may think, or want, or like, then this place is occupying room in our lives that God should have instead.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold