Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Aspired - Despair - Diapers - Praised (08/28/25)
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TITLE: A Divine Pat On The Back | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
09/02/25 -
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There can be a great temptation to compromise our personal convictions in order to secure the praise from others who are in a position to advance us in whatever endeavor we wish to undertake.
While remaining open to corrective criticism is necessary to make improvements, one must take care not to become a people-pleaser at the expense of disserving God (1).
Matt. 7: 14 teaches that where spiritual (religious) issues are concerned, the majority of people will get it wrong.
So why seek their approval?
Jesus taught His followers to take heed when it is all of the (deceived) people that are praising them (2).
In this world, most things are all about the money.
Providing consumers with what they want is what keeps them coming back for more.
Sad to say, but such strategies have contributed to much of the apostate teachings and accompanying practices that are being promoted by many of our present-day pulpits.
Any Biblically-qualified and functioning pastor-teacher can tell you that a ministry can be more financially secure, attain greater assets, and retain larger congregations, by simply providing the congregation with the services they want to receive, and by telling them what they want to hear.
Due to the prophesied lack of appetite (4) for accurate doctrine, attendance and the sustaining financial support it brings, is in serious decline.
Many of the local ministries that remain are going to extreme measures trying to stay afloat, by compromising accurate doctrine, and in some cases, condoning, and even promoting what even the devil’s world, a few years ago, would label as sin!
Jesus taught that wherever one’s heart is, there it will be where that his or her money will be invested, as well (5).
God does not want what you can’t afford, but when a “follower of Christ” spends more money on his or her secular entertainment than what he or she offers to God on a regular basis, it’s time for a 2Cor. 13: 5 examination.
It may also be time for the pastor-teacher to assess the quantity and quality of what is coming from his pulpit.
Writers can easily find themselves facing similar temptations to compromise their spiritual convictions, and styles of writing, in order to receive the praise and financial benefits from publishers, editors, and a readership that are primarily focused on what sells and entertains, as opposed to what evangelizes or edifies.
Writers cannot serve God (6) and or make as much money as they would by participating in the secular market.
There is enough trash out there without “Christian” writers using their writing skills to contribute to the heap of garbage that has no eternal significance, and is destined to go up in flames (7).
Furthermore, there is a major difference between writings that Christians produce, and what qualifies as Christian writing. To qualify as “Christian” writing, the reader, will have been given the opportunity to be evangelized, spiritually edified, or both.
It’s one thing to say that God or the Bible says this or that, but the writing will have the powerful Heb. 4: 12 sharp, cutting edge of Scripture, when it includes Chapter and verse cross references.
This is not to say that all Christian writing has to come across as a technical sermon.
Jesus, without (always) quoting Scripture, taught many things through story-telling (parables) that His listeners (with spiritual discernment) could relate to, understand, and receive spiritual guidance (Matt. 13: 34).
Note however, that even His closest disciples, would be in need of further explanation.
At the end of the day (life), there is only one critique or reward that really matters to an advancing disciple who makes spiritual use of his or her writing abilities to glorify God.
As in the case of the Bible, it is God who is to be praised and glorified, and not the human authors.
The only approval, award, recognition and praise that a Christian writer should desire to receive, is to have God say to him or her, at the 1Cor. 3: 12-15 event, “Well done… (Matt. 25: 23 NASB2020).”
(1) Gal. 1: 10 (2) Luke 6: 26 (3) Rev. 3: 17 (4) 1Tim. 4: 1 (5) Matt. 6: 21 (6) Matt. 6: 24 (7) 1Cor. 3: 13, 15
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