Pleasing Men or Pleasing God?

By Joe Keim

March 1, 2008

Hello Friend, I hope this finds you doing well. I pray that God is continually filling you with a deeper hunger to serve Him. I have found that if we are not careful, we can very quickly allow men to keep us from following and serving God the way He wants us to.

Paul writes in Galatians 1:10-For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

Over the years I have at times had a real struggle with trying to please everybody. There were times when I would put myself through all kinds of misery and sleepless nights, just so I could feel good about my relationship with that other person. But you know, the older I get the more I realize something-I will never, as long as I live, be able to please everybody all the time.

A good illustration of what I am talking about is this: we get responses from people who are getting the Amish Voice on a regular basis. Some are highly positive and excited about the teachings that this ministry offers and want to know how they can help financially. Others have gotten very angry at what we are doing and want absolutely nothing to do with the publication.

Having said all that, let me say that I apologize if we ever publish anything contrary to God's Word-it is not our desire to mis-quote God's Word in any way. We do however not apologize for God's truth. I would like to encourage our readers to do what the Bereans did in Acts 17:11 where it says...

These (Bereans) were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

The following could be said about the Bereans. They were...

"Open-minded"-they were teachable.
"Eager listeners"-they were open to hear the truth.
"Scripture searchers"-they did not take everything and everyone at its word. They did their homework.
"Truth seekers"-they were looking for absolute truth.

May all of us try our best to have that same attitude about the Word of God!

Keywords: amish, amish voice, christian living, joe keim, map ministry, mission to amish people, pleasing god