We are Not Called to be Liked by All

Let’s just say it.

We all want people to be honest to us. We all want people to love us. We all want people to respect us. We all want people to appreciate us. We all want people to care about us.

And the list goes on.

We all want these things from people, from everyone.

One of the most natural tendencies is the fact that we all want to be liked.

Who doesn’t?

And wanting to be liked is not a bad thing. But it can become so. Our want to be liked can be so strong that we go out of our way to be liked. In the process, we forsake our morals, our values all for the sake of being liked. We give up everything so that we can be liked.

This is where it goes wrong. Where something that can be such a innocent thing, turns into a sin.

We can’t go against our morals, our values for someone else.

If we go against our own values, it shows to everyone how much those values really mean to us. That they’re not really our values at all. That our want to be liked is more of a value to us than anything else.

This can turn into the situation like that of the rich young ruler in the Bible. He valued his wealth above everything else, including Jesus.

We can’t let our want to be liked turn us away from God. We can’t throw the values and morals we claim to have out the window for something so small and insignificant.

This goes on to say that we’re not perfect. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to fail. We are to leave our values for something that seems more important in the moment. Yes, it happens. Look at Peter, who denied Jesus three times after saying that he would never do so. But we can not excuse our actions. Whether we like it or not, our decisions make an impact in our everyday lives. We must learn from these mistakes. And when we learn, we do not make the same mistakes again.

First, we need to admit to ourselves that being liked is a fickle and fragile thing. It is something that moves and shifts as a wave. Truly, it is rather impossible to be liked by all, but everyone has such different opinions and thought processes. You can’t please everyone.

So we need to know that being liked by all is never going to happen.

But we also need to remember that being liked is not worth all the effort that we put into it.

The most important fact is that we are not called to be liked by people.

John 15:19

The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

In fact, Jesus said that we would be hated by the world, the people. We, as Christians, aren’t of the world. Because of that, there will be some tension and strife between the people of the world and the people of God. We’re different people with different values and morals.

Instead of striving to be liked, let’s strive to be examples of Christ. People will still hate us. That’s been happening for thousands of years. But there will be those drawn to Christ. Those who will change.

And that means so much more than just being liked.

-G. Paige