Scripture

For the praise of men was dearer to them than the approval of God.

~John 12:43, BBE

Quote

When Jesus is our central focus, contentment replaces our anxiety as well as our fears and insecurities.

~Chuck Swindoll {Wisdom For The Way}

Pharisees like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had trouble openly declaring their love for Jesus. The Pharisees had a mutual admiration society–“You praise me, and I will praise you.” They lived for the affirmation of their peers. Our focus or goal must never be to please people. If pleasing people is your primary goal, you have set yourself up for failure because people are impossible to please. It is a lose/lose.  Trust me, I have been in ministry for over 50 years, and I have never been able to make anyone let alone everyone happy. There is always someone mad, upset, critical, disenchanted and coming at you for blood. We can live a life of total frustration, or we can make up our mind that we are going to focus on Jesus and let the chips fall where they might. I don’t wake up in the morning and think, “How many people can I tick off today?” I never walk into the pulpit with goal of offending someone, but I have offended hundreds, maybe thousands. You cannot preach God’s word without offending someone. Sin, by nature, is offensive. This does not mean that I am always in the right when offense takes place. No, there have been times when I said things in the wrong spirit or said something stupid. In such cases I have to deal with the guilt of my error. I confess it to the LORD, apologize to whomever I need to apologize to and move on. At the end of the day, I have to get my affirmation from the LORD Himself. That is why I spend more time with Him than anyone else: I desperately need His affirmation. If I can get a well done from HIM, I really don’t care what others think, but of course, there is a problem when I don’t get His affirmation.

Bottom line: It troubles me that I can’t please everyone, but I can’t, it is humanly impossible. If I try, I set myself up for constant failure. Trust me, Jesus is much easier to please than people. He is much more understanding and more gracious and merciful. People can be hard on preachers and their expectations are unrealistic and through the roof. The more you do to please them, the more they expect, and you can never do enough. Odd as it may seem, the people who affirm me most are the ones for whom I do the least. You can never please these folks who call you in the middle of the night because their x-father-in-law has an ingrown toenail. Those who demand don’t understand. They don’t care about you, your health, your family, your expense or anything else related to you; all they care about is you meeting their expectations.

Let me tell you what can happen to over demanding people such as I have described: God can call your son to preach or your daughter to be a missionary. When this happens, people usually sing a different tune. I know a man, a deacon, who fought every raise recommended for his pastor. He did this his entire life and then God called his son to preach. Wherever his son went, he visited and nosed around the building until he found a financial report. When he did, he would bring it back to his son and say, “They are not paying you enough.” His son would chuckle with laughter and say, “This comes from a man who fought every raise recommended for his pastor.” It is what it is folks. Human nature does not change so if you want any peace, you must be the one to change. Focus on pleasing Jesus and don’t worry about pleasing people. It cannot be done.

Extra

Got a little snow yesterday; very little. Hannah is like my daddy, she hates snow, but I guarantee you the kids pray for it–they want out of school. They have gone one day, and they are ready for spring break. Junior Hill was promoted yesterday morning. Junior was 87 years old. He had a long and fruitful ministry. I think I was 19 when I first heard Junior. He was in Revival at the Central Park Baptist Church. We used Junior over 20 times and we have a lot of Junior stories. I guarantee you the Sessums family in Mississippi remember Junior. When we were at Cherokee, we had a special needs child, about 12 years of age and his parents were very sensitive. I knew that retarded was one of Junior’s favorite words so I warned him: “Junior, please don’t say anything about retardation.” The first thing he said when he got in the pulpit was, “Bro. Jack is the best retarded pastor I know.” We had a tent meeting while I was in Cherokee {86 professions of faith}. We talked three other churches into going in with us and one of them invited a gospel singing quartet. They were supposed to do the special music before the sermon, but they had far too much ego to sing and sit down. They did a mini-concert which was upsetting to me. Junior didn’t say a word. He was staying with June and I that week. All day long the next day, Junior didn’t mention the egotistical musicians. Then on the way to the tent meeting that night, right out of the clear blue, Junior said, “Jack, are Jake and the Blasphemers singing again tonight?”

Jack Taylor said PRAYERS are active like sound waves zinging through the atmosphere. Lift up a prayer for your pastor today. You need his sermons, and he needs your prayers.

Have a good day and thanks for reading the blog.