It’s Not a Popularity Contest

2022-02-13

Life is not a popularity contest. If you are going to be a Christian, or especially a pastor or missionary, you cannot seek to be popular, because if you do it right, you will fail at pleasing the world. Opposition is a part of having a testimony for Jesus Christ. “Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that was in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire” (Jeremiah 38:6).

There is a temptation to want to please people and not to tell the whole truth. “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” (Galatians 1:10). We want people to like us. We do not want to hurt feelings. However, the goal is “speaking the truth in love” with others.

You cannot please everyone. You must choose to please the Lord first, then what to say and do will become apparent.