AUG 17 – WHOM DO YOU PLEASE?

“We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1).

Whom do you please? On whom does your life rely upon? Towards whom are you running? Some people please themselves. Some others please other people. Those who please themselves remain selfish. Those who please other people suffer in the end. But, those who please God remain happy forever.

Look at Pilate! He wanted to gratify the crowd (Mark 15:15). He had a wrong calculation that pleasing the people would help him remain in the high post for longer. He thought, ‘People like to release Barabbas. If I please the people now, they would support me and thereby, I could continue in the present high post. I will be receiving gifts from others and I could carry out the governance without oppositions.’ He did not want to please Jesus Christ. He might have thought that pleasing Jesus would in no way be beneficial to him.

Alas! The historical books say that the end of Pilate was pathetic. Being pricked by the guilty conscience, he had been roaming like a mad man.  In the end, he committed suicide by jumping into a pond. Do not sadden God by pleasing the people as Pilate did. Always please Jesus who breathed life into the nostrils and who sacrificed Himself on the Cross for your sake.

Indeed, you must please your wife, children and other relatives. But one should never show love towards any worldly relationship, saddening God.

Once, a person holding a high post in the army asked his wife to serve liquor to his friends but his wife refused to do that. She said with love, “As a wife, I have certain responsibilities towards you. But, I do not want to please you saddening God.”

Your life in this world is going to be only for a short period. But you will have to live for crores of years with God in the Heavenly Kingdom. Are you pleasing man or God?  Dear children of God, resolve to lead a life that would please God.

To meditate: “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10).