HOW TO CONDUCT YOURSELF
There is a certain way that believers are to live and conduct themselves as representatives of God on earth.
If we believe, we will behave. If we love him, we will live for him. In other words, our life will always follow the things that we have in our minds. If Jesus is our focus, then pleasing Jesus, and living for him, will be the focus of our lives.
Jesus asked in Luke chapter 6, “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you?” If he is Lord, then that means he is in control. He is to be the one who directs our steps. We are to live under and by his authority.
The authority of Christ means that he speaks and we obey. We are not to question him, we are to obey him. We are to love him enough to serve him out of a heart of appreciation. We are members of his family, and we are to honor the family name.
Paul said this very thing to Timothy: “I am writing this so that you will know how you must live as a member of God’s household” (1 Timothy 3:15). How could being adopted into the family of God not affect every aspect of our lives? How could it not determine the way that we choose to live?
The thing that separated the way Christ lived and the way everyone else has ever lived is that he did everything to please his Father. Every single moment of every single day, that was his mission. To obey God.
Pleasing God was his only concern. He was not concerned with the opinions of men. He did not concern himself with his reputation in the eyes of the world.
He was focused like a laser on obeying his father. On the things of heaven. On the things that really matter. He wanted to be pleasing to God. Because he loved God. That’s what love for God will always seek to do.
This is what Christ will produce in us. If we love him and trust his power to work in our lives, we will have this same kind of focus. Paul said that Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20), which is a way of saying that we are to surrender the way we live to the way Christ lived. His power is there to make us what we need to be.
With Christ in us, we will not be “pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4). You cannot do both, and yet there is always that constant struggle within us. We spend more time thinking about what people think than about what God thinks. And that is sad for so many reasons.
God created us and he has been there the entire time. We owe everything to him. As far as life and salvation and everything that we have, we owe no one but God.
God has also proven that he cares about us. Some people do, but most people don’t. And even those who do cannot possibly care like God does.
It is sad indeed to think about the fact that people who do not even like you get more of your attention than God. Pleasing people is a waste of time.
Someone can start one rumor and have a multitude of people thinking negatively about you. And then that reputation that you worked so hard for and that meant so much to you is gone in a minute.
But God has already decided how he feels about you. And your mistakes do not change that. He has already determined to love you.
This is why he should have our attention. He should have the focus of our lives. But we spend more time thinking about what others think and say about us than we do about what God thinks.
Learn to live your life for an audience of one. The one being Christ Jesus. Live only to please him, because he is the one who is going to be with you every step of the way.
He is the one who has never let you down and is never going to let you down. He will never lie to you, never judge you unfairly, never turn on you. He never goes based on hearsay. If your heart is right before him, then you are pleasing him.
That is what he thinks of you. And that should be all that matters. And by choosing to focus on him, that will be all that matters.
Dewayne Dunaway
