One day we will all stand before Jesus to be judged.  The Bible is clear about this.

Romans 14:10 (NKJV)
¹⁰ But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

This being the case, we should spend our days trying to please Jesus not worrying about how man might judge us.  This helped Paul be the Christian he was—he did not care if he was judged poorly by man.  He lost no sleep over the opinions that others had of him.    He expressed this to the saints at Corinth.

1 Corinthians 4:3 (ESV)
³ But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

Paul did not say that he cared nothing about the opinions of men, but that it meant very little to him.  We all feel some kind of way when we learn that someone is judging us poorly.  The question is how much do we care about it.  Do we care enough to compromise our convictions?  Do we allow what man thinks, says, or does to determine how we live our lives or the daily decisions that we make?  If we do, we will find it very hard to be a faithful servant of God.

Galatians 1:10 (ESV)
¹⁰ For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul is mostly referring to his previous religious life.  While probably unaware of it at the time, when Paul was under Judaism, he was more concerned about pleasing the Jewish authorities such as the high priest and the Sanhedrin than he should have been.  Now his only focus was pleasing His Savior and that is the way it should be for all of us.

Peer pressure has always been an obstacle for the people of God.  There is a natural tendency to want to be liked by others, but if we allow those feelings to get too strong it will cause us to make bad decisions in an attempt to be looked favorably upon by others.  We can only avoid this by purposely and diligently making it our aim to please God above everyone else.  Daniel is another example of someone who was able to overcome the temptation of trying to please man.

Daniel 1:8 (ESV)
⁸ But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.

This was a resolution that would be unpopular among the peers of Daniel.  Remember, Daniel was only a teenager when he was taken into Babylonian captivity, probably around seventeen years old.  Imagine how the young Babylonian teenagers who were also being trained to serve in the palace would have thought about Daniel.  Or, perhaps more to the point, the other Jewish young men who were being trained for palace duties.  They may have thought Daniel was “rocking the boat.”  I can imagine some of them saying, “Daniel, stop making trouble.  You are going to ruin it for the rest of us.”  When pleasing others is driving us, it is hard to overcome the desire to make other people happy.   Daniel overcame any peer pressure he might have faced by resolving, or as the KJV says, proposing in his heart, to do what was right before God.    

We all care about how we are judged by others, but like Paul, it should be a very small thing.  

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.