Christian Devotional – August 18, 2021

The Gospels through the Summer, Day 83

What do people think about me? Read John 15.

While Jesus covers many things throughout this chapter, this verse stuck out to me today. I have teenagers. Two teenagers to be exact. And sometimes the conversation about what other people think about them can get pretty intense. But you know, it’s not just teenagers that worry about that. I talked to a number of different people and many of them are worried about the opinion of others.

Jesus clears that up for us in this passage. We should just expect that if we are following Jesus Christ, then others are not going to like us all the time. In fact, they may even hate us. They hated Jesus, so why would we expect anything different for us. One of my mentors used to say, “Please God, and the people that please God will be pleased with you. You pray for the rest.” Ultimately however, our goal is to please God and our reputation and our integrity has to do with how we please God. We don’t need to concern ourselves with the rest. Are we pleasing God or are we pleasing men?