IMPRESSING FOLKS

I use the term "folks", because I am from the South and down here, we refer to people as "folks". True Southerners for the most part, are pretty warm and friendly folk. It's not a matter of putting on airs or trying to impress folks, but just simply, how they were raised and their choice, in how they like to treat folks. However, we are not so far removed from the grievous act of having two faces; as the most prestigious Hamlet sighted to Ophelia, when he told her, "God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another", that we cannot relate to what he accusing her of doing. We all like to "put on the hog", so to speak every now and then. We do so, because it is in our nature to do so. Whether you are from the south or not, something in you will at times impress you, to impress someone else.  The beloved Adrian Rogers, tells a story about a young man that had just started his new law office and had just finished hanging his new sign on the door, when he heard someone coming down the hallway and thought to himself, "ah ha, here comes a possible new client that I can impress", so he picked up his phone and began talking as if someone was on the other end, he said, "yes…no, I am sorry I cannot see you tomorrow, I have a heavy cooperation case I am working on, perhaps I can see you next week, if you will talk to my appointment secretary, I may be able to help you" and hung up the phone. By this time the man coming down the hallway is standing in his office…"Now Sir, what may I do for you?", and the man replied, "I'm from the telephone company and I'm here to hook up your telephone". The struggle with impressing people comes from a deep and long desire in both our spiritual and fleshly natures as Christians. We are hard wired in our flesh to gratify our fleshly desires and once we are born again and receive our new spiritual nature, they wrestle within us to gain power. Gal. 5:17 even tells us that, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please." Paul said this about his own struggle, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature….For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do…this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Romans 17:15-20  For myself, I understand these verses very well. Because I too struggle with wanting always, to do the Father's will with the right heart attitude and motives and yet, I wrestle at every turn over how I will handle them. In the end, the way that I handle sin in my own life is to rebuke myself and confess it when I give in and act upon it, being quick and willing to have a change of heart by checking my heart motives to see if my flesh is seeking glory or to have its way, always praying God's will in every situation. There is a vast difference in seeking glory for yourself in the things that you do, verses allowing others to see your good works and glorify the Father in them as Matt 5:16 tells us to do. No one is above their fleshly desires and we all struggle in them. The thing that we must keep ever before us, is that we are making effort in our lives to relinquish any act that glorifies the sinful nature in us. Let God judge your heart and do not worry about what others think your heart and motives are. Chances are they have enough struggles over sin in their own hearts to keep them busy. Keep seeking to do right no matter what. Let us not live to impress others apart from Matthew 5:16 and not worry about what others think our motives are in our service or walk with Christ. Because our dreaded enemy would love nothing more than for us to shut down and cease to make a difference in the lives of those that God brings our way. Paul also said that he became all things that he may win folks to the Lord. Do not give in today sweet friend, but rise up and encourage yourself to stay in the spiritual fight until the day of His coming!

Hold Fast,

Bren