Every man looks to his fellow men because he has no one else to whom he can look. David could say, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee,” but the sons of this world have not God, they have only each other, and they walk holding to each other and looking to one another for assurance like frightened children. But their hope will fail them, for they are like a group of men, none of whom has learned to fly a plane, who suddenly find themselves aloft without a pilot, each looking to the other to bring them safely down. Their desperate but mistaken trust cannot save them from the crash that must certainly follow.
With this desire to please men so deeply implanted within us how can we uproot it and shift our life-drive from pleasing men to pleasing God? Well, no one can do it alone, nor can he do it with the help of others, nor by education nor by training nor by any other method known under the sun. What is required is a reversal of nature (that it is a fallen nature does not make it any the less powerful) and this reversal must be a supernatural act. That act the Spirit performs through the power of the gospel when it is received in living faith. Then He displaces the old with the new. Then He invades the life as sunlight invades a landscape and drives out the told motives as light drives away darkness from the sky.
Verse
Whom have I in heaven but you? / And earth has nothing I desire besides you. Psalm 73:25
Thought
What is required to please God is a reversal of nature (that it is a fallen nature does not make it any the less powerful) and this reversal must be a supernatural act.
Prayer
We invite Your Spirit, Holy Father, to come dwell in us and change our fallen nature to one attuned to Your will.