MAN-PLEASING
God was so
precious to my soul that the world with all its enjoyments appeared vile. I had no more value for the favor of men than
for pebbles.
What happens when you are obsessed with getting people to
like you? You become flirtatious or artificial, a coward or a deceiver, a
chameleon or a recluse.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers,
2003, p.79.
You can end
up in grave sin by thinking it is very important to be nice to people. How easy it is to practice a gutless
compassion that never wants to offend anyone, that equates niceness with love
and thereby ignores God's law and essentially despises His holiness. We do not necessarily seek God's honor when
we spare human feelings.
Dale Ralph Davis
1 Samuel, Christian Focus Publications, 1
Samuel, p. 36-37.
Approval
junkies live as hostages to other people’s opinions and judgments regarding
their thoughts, motives, feelings, or behaviors. Approval seekers look good;
they have to... But people-pleasing isn’t godly, nor is it healthy. Appeasers
usually end up feeling used, unappreciated, and driven to become all things to
all people in order to maintain their image and receive continued approval.
They appear giving but in fact they are enslaved to their insatiable need to be
admired.
Nancy Groom
Copied
from Bondage
to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love copyright
1991, p. 35, Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com, All rights reserved.
What is the
result of…people-idolatry? As in all
idolatry, the idol we choose to worship soon owns us. The object we fear overcomes us. Although insignificant in itself, the idol
becomes huge and rules us. It tells us
how to think, what to feel, and how to act.
It tells us what to wear, it tells us to laugh at the dirty joke, and it
tells us to be frightened to death that we might have to get up in front of a
group and say something. The whole
strategy backfires. We never expect that
using people to meet our desires leaves us enslaved to them.
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 46. Used by Permission.
People-pleasers
can mistake “niceness” for love. When
they do, they will be prone to being manipulated by others, and burn-out is
sure to follow. People-pleasers can also
mistake “yes” for love.
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 214. Used by
Permission.
Too much
desire to please men mightily prejudgeth the pleasing
of God.
Rules and Instructions for a Holy
Life.
It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have
arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency to dishonor God and
to flatter man.