Revelation 3:1

I know what you have done. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

You are not your reputation.

Trying to live up to a reputation proves futile eventually.

But performing for an Audience of One, living in the truth that Christ knows what’s in your heart and which you can’t hide from him, is ultimately satisfying.

As you do this, you live more and more for Christ, and less and less for others, less for your reputation. It’s not that you consciously don’t care what people think, but over time, you don’t even think about what other people think of you or your decisions—in a healthy way.

I think this is one of the things Christ saves us from—enslavement to living up to others’ expectations. As some of you may remember, one of the top five regrets of dying people is that they wished they had lived a life true to themselves, and not according to what others expected of them.

Living to please Christ will ensure a life true to yourself, to your true self, because you live true to that which you came from.

True to who you came from.

True to who instilled your very identity.

So today, as you make your minute by minute decisions which form your life, make them based on pleasing Christ, the One who knows why you do everything you do anyway.