[379 words]
Do you ever wonder if you are pleasing to God? Do you consider if you are living a life that is pleasing to Him?
Jesus stated in John 8:29 that “I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” God acknowledged that he indeed was pleased with Jesus as the apostle Peter records in 2 Peter 1:17 of the time God spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Just as Jesus “was heard because of His reverence” and ”although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered” (Hebrews 5:7).
We must also do the following:
1. Revere God and be obedient to his word. “For thus says the lord: To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, who choose the things that please Me and hold fast My covenant” (Isaiah 56:4). “Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him” (1 John 3:22).
2. How we conduct ourselves here on earth. “Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13:16).
3. By preaching the gospel and holding true to it. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). “But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so to speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:4).
It is imperative that we get to the business of speaking God’s message only. To please Him, not people, as He will “test our hearts” for such. It is a matter of faith to please God as the Hebrews writer declared that “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6). Let’s be encouraged by Proverbs 16:7, “When a man’s ways pleases the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Terry Ellison
Crosbyton church of Christ
Crosbyton, TX