The picture above is of Walter Mitty. His movie is called the Secret Life of Walter Mitty – and I am writing this blog to encourage you as a Christian to not have a secret life.
The reason people live a secret life is that they want to please other people, not God, and we do not have a choice in this – the Bible is clear – Paul said – if I pleased men, I would not be a servant of Christ (Galatians 1.10). If we live for the praise of men, we displease people.
By becoming a pastor, I displeased my parents. But I decided to honour God and live like a servant of Christ. Following Christ has displeased several people I know, but I want to be a servant of Christ.
Sometimes to live for Jesus you will have to upset someone, go contrary to their opinion, and just do what pleases Jesus! Your parents might want you to marry an unbeliever – because he is kind and wealthy. Don’t do it. Please Jesus!
God is not fooled by your double life, by the way. He spots it. Men might be impressed with you on the outside – to them you look awesome, but if you are living a double life, you are decidedly unawesome before God. Men might be impressed with your car, God isn’t. We need to live as servants of Christ, pleasing God, loving God, putting God first to make God see us as awesome. He loves you no matter what you do, but we should make good choices and not use His kindness and love as an excuse for us to be selfish!
It amazes me that people will say almost anything to be awesome to men, but will take no time to be awesome before God. I know people who are in so much debt to have nice things – their purpose – to impress others, to look awesome to others. Others pretend to behave in certain ways.
Let me tell you two things: you cannot be fruitful pretending to a life to impress others. I would never have the fruit in my life that I have if I was concerned about impressing others.
Secondly, when you stop living to impress others, it is a wonderful freedom that comes. It’s so much peace. I didn’t spend the money on awesome cars, I spent it hiring awesome staff, and creating awesome TV programmes that are on all over the world. Because I genuinely have no desire to be thought of as awesome, I have had so much freedom that some of my peers sadly have not had.
There is no need to impress anyone, build character, build a walk with God and over time people will realize that this is the real awesome. It takes time to do it this way, but it is better.
Never be awesome on the outside and falling apart on the inside – you are working on the wrong thing, and it will not lead to longevity or a great place.
Tree of Life Blog 