This is part of the series The Life That Honors God, from 1 Timothy. Check out more from the series!

Right now, we are in the middle of a series, where I am sharing five different aspects of The Life That Honors God. This series, based out of 1 Timothy chapter 4 and chapter 5, is all about how to live a life that makes a difference to others, but most importantly, to God. Click on the link in the box above to see the introductory post, with links to all five aspects.

1 Timothy 4:9-10 says:

This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

Your security, your confidence should be in God alone. Keep him as Lord of your life always and only.

Avoid the temptation to place confidence in the philosophies of man or worse yet, in yourself.

Many people desire to achieve public recognition. They desire the attention to be on themselves. They are willing to sacrifice credibility to achieve recognition.

But serving Christ is not a place to seek a name for yourself. Your ministry, your service, is a place to become lesser so that God might be glorified. And so that others might see that their confidence and security should be in God, who is the savior of man, and not some personality.

Many times we serve with the attitude of “Hey, look at me! See what I am doing!” And this is exactly the attitude Jesus warned about in Matthew 6:5-6:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

As you serve, as you minister, you have to have the same attitude.

What you do to serve Christ has to come out of a desire to serve him, not a desire to be seen by men.

How often do we forget this? We want to look good before others. We want the cool clothes, the nicest car, or house. We want to be seen with the right people, at the right places.

Our society says “image is everything.” And we have bought into it with everything we have.

Society says, “Look at me!” But service says, “Look at God.”

Don’t trust in anything society throws at you. Trust in God alone.

What tempts you to place your trust in something besides God? What do you do to combat this? You can share your thoughts in the comment section below.