“But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.”
-Acts 5:29
Oh, I want that prayer to be the commentary of my life. I want to obey God rather than man. I would encourage us to have prayer be the commentary of our lives. That it would be said that what drove us, the motivation that woke us up in the morning and drove every single decision we make, and thought we have, desire we have, thing we do, that it’s all driven by “God, I want to obey You.” Not people.
Acts 5:29 Reminds Us to Not be People Pleasers
I just see in my own life this dangerous tendency and temptation to be a people pleaser. To just want to do what will make people think well of me. I see my pride as such a sinful tendency to let motivate me. Like, how will this affect the way others perceive me? How does this affect the way others think of me? What will others think about this or that? I just think what would it be like if I was driven, like my every thought, desire, action was driven, what will God think of this? What will God think of this? And what will most please Him? What is most obedient to His word? Like for that to be the driving motivation of my life, your life, because this is what matters.
Our motivation ought to be please and obey God rather than man.
People’s perception, people’s praise and applause even, we know, we know all of our scripture, we know and experience like it’s fleeting. It’s fleeting. It doesn’t last and it’s not what matters. What matters ultimately is what God says, what He has said in His word, obeying it and then what He will say in the end. We must obey God rather than man. In the context here, obviously in Acts 5:29, in the middle of persecution, that was costly, very costly for them as they were experiencing imprisonment, but they said our goal is not to please the government even, in this case, our goal is to please God. May this motivation drive us today at everything we do.
Prayer for Deliverance From Pride And People Pleasing
We pray toward that. God help me, help us, I pray, to be driven today with the zeal to obey You, or deliver us from people pleasing. Not that we don’t care about people. We want to love and serve people, but we know the best way we can love and serve people is by obeying You, by doing that which pleases You, so help us by Your grace. Additionally, Help me today, help us today by Your grace to please and obey You above all else. Deliver us, save us from ourselves, from our pride that causes us to want to please this person or that person above pleasing You. Finally, Help us to obey You rather than people today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
