{"id":41989,"date":"2014-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/imaginary-talk-with-god-about-people-pleasing\/"},"modified":"2014-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-01T00:00:00","slug":"imaginary-talk-with-god-about-people-pleasing","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/imaginary-talk-with-god-about-people-pleasing\/","title":{"rendered":"An Imaginary Talk with God about People-pleasing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Think about this the next time you feel pressure to please someone or to please a group of people rather than trying to fear and please God. Picture yourself at your life review with God having the following conversation:<\/p>\n\n<p><em>God<\/em>: &quot;So, why didn&#39;t you take the opportunity I offered you?&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>You: &quot;I really wanted to and I knew it was your will for my life, but you know how upset _____ would have gotten if I did. It would have been awful.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p><em>God<\/em>: &quot;You are right, ______ would have gone through the roof and would have been upset with you. And, I have a meeting with _____ later &hellip; in exactly three years, two months, six days, seven hours, and thirty-three minutes. At that time, I&#39;ll be talking to ______ about his [or her] tendency to get mad at people when they did not please him [or her]. I will take care of that issue. But that is ______&#39;s life, not yours. You are responsible for your own choices. You are responsible for your own decisions and ________ is responsible for how he [she] responded to you &hellip; That will be his [or her] problem. But, the fact that you chose to give in to him [or her] is your problem, and now I want to show you the life that you gave up by living the life that other people wanted. Watch that screen over there &hellip; .&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Then you see what could have been if only you had not tried to live your life to please others instead of first pleasing God.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3671,3978,3979,4619,4655,4656],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41989","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-confrontation","tax_ctp_tags-fear-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-fear-of-man","tax_ctp_tags-peer-pressure","tax_ctp_tags-pleasing-god","tax_ctp_tags-pleasing-others"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Imaginary Talk with God about People-pleasing - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/imaginary-talk-with-god-about-people-pleasing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Imaginary Talk with God about People-pleasing - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Think about this the next time you feel pressure to please someone or to please a group of people rather than trying to fear and please God. 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