When you think about your life, how much time over the course of your life have you spent on these two questions:
What do people think of me?
How are people treating me?
And realize of course that the questions are usually not that general. “What does ______ think of me?” “I don’t like how __________ is treating me.”
Those two areas of concern CONSUME the time and the attention and the emotional energies of people every day. People find themselves troubled, sidetracked, prompted to sin, and sometimes paralyzed to act, because they are consumed with what people think of them and how people treat them. And sometimes that concern is not about the present but about potential repercussions. “If I do this, if I decide this, if I say this, what will the cost be?”
IF THOSE TWO AREAS OF CONCERN CONSUME YOU – THEN YOU ARE GOING TO STRUGGLE IN MINISTRY. If you are a people pleaser, you are going to struggle in ministry. In fact, you are going to struggle in the Christian life.
To be a faithful servant of God over the course of a lifetime requires that these two areas be consistently yielded to God. We aren’t perfect in it. We have to strive after it. But we must deal with it.