Your Work Matters To GodSample

An Audience of One

What audience do you play to? Each day you are seen by many who will make a judgment about the way you handle yourself among different audiences. Politicians have learned to play to their audiences, customizing messages for the needs of their particular groups. Musicians have learned to play to their audiences. Pastors play to their congregations each Sunday morning. Businesspeople play to the audiences who will buy their product.

Christ has called us to play to one audience—the audience of Himself. When you seek to please any other audience in your life, you become susceptible to situational ethics and motivations based on the need for the moment. Your audience becomes a pawn in your hands because you know what they want. Is that wrong? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

Pure obedience to pleasing God in our lives will often meet the needs of those around us. It is God’s will that you and I love our spouses, provide good services to our customers, and look to the interests of others before ourselves. This will result in meeting many needs of the audiences in our lives.

However, there are other times when our audiences may ask for something contrary to God’s will.

Politicians are often forced to appease their audiences, even though it may go against God’s laws. When we are asked to go with the flow, we discover which audience is most important in our lives. Is it the audience of One, or the audience of many?

Who are the audiences in your life? What are the dangers of playing exclusively to the needs of an audience?

How do you know when you are playing to an audience instead of playing to the “audience of one?”

What steps could you take that would protect you from making choices purely on the perception of what others will think?

It is nonsense to imagine that God expects me to discern all that is clear to His own mind; all He asks of me is maintain perfect confidence in Him. Faith springs from the indwelling of the life of God in me.  –Oswald Chambers

Workplace Application

Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing byhimself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.” John 5:19-20

Christ was not driven by public opinion. He only did what the Father told him to do. Jesus represented a life lived to please an audience of One. We live in a day when we are often driven by the latest opinion poll. There is only one decision to be made—the right one. No matter the cost.

God calls you and I into an intimacy with Himself. That intimacy with God allows us to hear his voice, and to be led by the Holy Spirit. If you are to fulfill your workplace calling, you must do so by living to an audience of One.