Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? (Gal. 1:10)
Expanded Passage: Galatians 1:10
Chef Megan was a pastry chef trainee learning at a fancy restaurant. Her executive chef tasked her to prepare a special order for a private event. Her job was to make sugar-free chocolate mousse for one hundred people. She completed the tricky dessert very successfully—or so she thought. As she looked across the ingredients she had used, she realized that she had included the wrong sweetening agent. The dessert was not in fact sugar-free. Although the mousse looked and tasted amazing, it had a mistaken identity! Quickly, she whipped up a new batch, ensuring the second batch of mousse could indeed claim the title of sugar-free. (Don’t worry, both batches found their way to grateful recipients; no chocolate mousse was sacrificed in this mistake!)
Just like the accidental sugar in a “sugar-free” dessert, you and I can find ourselves leaning into a false identity when we fall into the trap of wanting or vying for the approval of humans and not God. Those who are called to serve Christ in ministry are not exempt from this trap; in fact, people-pleasing can be one of the biggest causes of a mistaken identity. Paul’s pointed questions to the Galatians should remind us to double-check our sense of identity today. As a servant of Christ, are you living for Christ or for the approval of human beings?
Pray for the courage to live for Christ above everything else.
Ashley Gage is an associate chaplain at a Christian university and contributing writer for This Holy Calling: Daily Wisdom from Women in Ministry (WPH).
excerpt from This Holy Calling, WPH
© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
