Developing an audience can be a dangerous thing. It is dangerous because if we are not careful, we can play to the demands of our audience at the expense of living and speaking the truth. Truth revealed to certain audiences can be an unnerving experience. It can also end relationships. Those negative impacts can lead us to a place of personal compromise where we no longer listen first to what the Lord is saying, but instead, we listen to our audience to get our direction, making sure what we say or do does not offend.

Jesus had a single audience, the Father. While on earth, Jesus demonstrated for us what it looks like to live in response to only the Father, pleasing Him, not an audience. The life of Jesus was directed by what the Father revealed to Him by revelatory imagery or speech. “So, Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does” (John 5:19). “I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it” (John 12:49).

2021 will be a year where portion control will be a critical assignment for many. This portion control is not about our eating habits but our willingness to serve only Heaven’s portion of truth to a world where compromise has deafened ears and blinded eyes. The most impactful resolution for the New Year might be our willingness to speak the truth in love no matter what audience we are standing before. That kind of impact can only happen if we rightly define our audience as an audience of one.