Saturday 25 February, 2017

2 Brothers and sisters, you know that our visit to you produced results. 2 You know what happened earlier in the city of Philippi. We suffered, and people treated us very badly there. But God gave us the boldness to tell you his good news. We preached to you even when people strongly opposed us. 3 The appeal we make is based on truth. It comes from a pure heart. We are not trying to trick you. 4 In fact, it is just the opposite. God has approved us to preach. He has trusted us with the good news. We aren’t trying to please people. We want to please God. He tests our hearts. 5 As you know, we never praised you if we didn’t mean it. We didn’t put on a mask to cover up any sinful desire. God is our witness that this is true. 6 We were not expecting people to praise us. We were not looking for praise from you or anyone else. Yet as Christ’s apostles, we could have used our authority over you. 7 Instead, we were like young children when we were with you. As a mother feeds and cares for her little children, 8 we cared for you. We loved you so much. So we were happy to share with you God’s good news. We were also happy to share our lives with you.

Paul appeals to the Thessalonians making plain that the manner of his appeal and preaching is not manipulative nor from a motive other than true love for them and for God.

Sometimes we baulk, sometimes we duck, sometimes we weave yet we should without fear tell the Gospel and from a clear motive and pure heart!

Pleasing people is one of the biggest traps we can get ourselves into. Time and again I have fallen into this trap – its mouth is wide and it seems almost bottomless!!

Paul makes plain we need to avoid this trap of the enemy.

Are you falling into the trap of people pleasing? Or are you truly loving people? You’ll know by whether you are free to tell the truth to them or not.

Father help us to keep our motives pure!

Written by Ps. Richard Botta