Pleasing God

The following article is by my friend Dave Price.

Its All About You

 Here is one of the most fascinating verses in the Bible to me, Hebrews 11:5, “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” (NIV) It isn’t amazing to me that Enoch was taken straight to heaven – God is a big God, He can certainly pull off something simple like that. What is amazing to me is the part I think most people miss – that before he was taken he was commended as one who pleased God. We would probably say that the proof that Enoch was pleasing to God is the fact that he was taken, but I think it’s something more. Enoch received proof that he was pleasing to God from God Himself before the “proof” was given. You see, the more glorious thing is not that he went straight to heaven; but that before he went to heaven God gave him proof that he was pleasing to Him. The only reason given that Enoch was pleasing to God is that he believed.

I know at first blush this sound too simplistic. It sounds too simple because we are used to religion being complicated, and that’s the problem. Faith is not religion, faith is not a denomination, faith is not an order of service or a ritual – faith is a relationship. I believe my wife loves me because, and only because, we have a relationship – there is no other proof. Sure, you could say that she proves she loves me by the things she does for me, but that is an invalid argument – lots of people do things for me who don’t love me. My wife makes me coffee, but so does the coffeeshop guy down the street, and he only loves my money. My wife does my laundry (and thankfully so, for I have proved myself an idiot more than once), but the laundry down the street will do it for me too. The examples are endless – anything my wife does for me can be done by someone else, therefore the things that she does for me can’t be the proof that she loves me. They can be a testimony to the fact that she loves me, but they can’t be the proof. The proof that she loves me is the relationship we have – no one on earth knows my heart, nor wants to know my heart, more than she wants to know my heart. No one on earth wants to be with me as much as she wants to be with me.  That is relationship, and that is the proof that Enoch had that he was pleasing to God, that they had a relationship.

Every definition of faith found in the Bible is based on relationship.  A life like that of Enoch’s has God as its highest pursuit – and this is life, that God created man because He desired to have a relationship with him, that God is interested in the heart of man, that God desires to be pursued by man, and God rewards any who pursue Him with the greatest gift of life, the proof that we are pleasing to Him. Now here’s the definition of pursuit: My greatest joy in life is when my child suddenly jumps up and wrap his arms around me to tell me that he loves me, not because I told him to, not because I scheduled 3 times during the day for him to do it, not because I prescribed the exact way that I wanted it done, but simply and purely because at that moment it was the desire of his heart. (Ladies, I know I keep using the masculine here, and I have 2 daughters, so forgive me, it’s just the way I write).

God is a great and gracious Father – that was the entire message of Jesus. Over and over Jesus preached God the Father, not God the religion. Mankind has devised every conceivable way he can think of to please God entirely based on the idea that we please God by what we do; at least I think he has, but I’m sure someone will come up with another way. But God is far less concerned with what we do than with who we are. If who we are is a person who believes that God exists, who believes that He loves us and desires us, then we are pleasing to God – and that’s faith. Here’s the real mind blower – if we have faith, everything that we are is pleasing to Him. The hopes and dreams and desires of my heart for my children I understand – what I struggle with is the understanding that the full depth of those same feelings is exactly what God feels for me. The reward of faith is to see what we believe. The reward of faith is the undeniable, unshakable knowledge that we are pleasing to God just the way we are – that doesn’t mean that we abandon the pursuit of becoming better people, just that the pursuit of being better is only a product of my desire to know Him and to be known more fully.

So here’s the conclusion – and I write this because it is the one thing I am pursuing more than life itself. The definition of pleasing, as I have adapted the definition from the dictionary, is this: I want to know that I give enjoyment to God, pleasure to God, satisfaction to God. I want to know that I make God glad and contented. I want to know that I am the will and the desire of God.  I want to know that I give God great pleasure, that I delight Him, that I enchant Him, that I gladden Him, that I gratify Him, that I overjoy Him, that I tickle Him. I want to know that He enjoys me enthusiastically, and often excessively. And the only requirement to knowing is that I believe. Go figure – all I have to do to know life in all its glorious fullness is to believe God. He’s going to have to help along with this, because I struggle with it daily – but I think I’m beginning to get the picture, and what a wonderful picture it is!

Rich

Grace

I was pondering on something the other day that I haven’t been able to write much of anything of real heart importance, and was simply musing upon that when He subtly but powerfully invaded my thoughts.

The reason for your malady son, is only because I am taking you through what you need to face, experience, go through, and in going through your daily routines, I am writing my life into you whereby you will be my living bill-board, and out of what I am writing into you, you will indeed write about it!

“Does it sound like we're patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we're not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.
We couldn't be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn't think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn't written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It's written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives!”


His grace much like the chemical solutions used in the photographers dark room being applied to the cameras film, releases, brings to observable recognition that which was already there but hidden from sight.
His grace is to exalt only One, His son Jesus Christ the word made flesh and who IS being fleshed out once again in many forth coming sons.
Therefore I look unto the author and developer of my faith as he has my permission to submerge me over and over into the depths of His grace to bring forth Christ in me as me to this world!

Abba, Father!

Rich

Going Without Knowing

I remember once listening to Willy Hinn, one of Benny Hinn’s brothers saying that his brothers were constantly encouraging him to join them in the ‘ministry’ to which he later capitulated only to discover the more he got involved in it, the further he ever sensed the reality of what he had in Christ before this decision.
It’s amazing the things that are perhaps ‘good’ in themselves actually being something that steals our heart affections from the One who has called us to Himself.

If it isn’t all about knowing Him, then the focus will inevitably be upon what I am doing.
I loved this quote I read this morning. “Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.”
Sort of like when the disciples asked Jesus, "Where do you live and he answered them, Come and BE with me.”
Or when they came to Him and asked, “What must we DO in order to DO the works of God,” Jesus as always went for the jugular, “This IS the Work of God, that you believe on/in Him whom the Father has sent.”

Is it any different in one sense than that which began to unfold in Abraham’s life, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going?”
You have to learn to go out of convictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until so far as your faith is concerned; there is nothing between yourself and God.

Rich

The Life of Another

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

If this is true then why is it that we say, ‘my faith is wavering?’ When and where is Christ ever wavering, but then maybe we see the Christ being separate from us?
I thought we were designed to bear only that which He can produce, rather than our focus being on us trying to produce faith or whatever else we think is necessary.
Is it because we really don’t have a revelation yet that we are alive only because of the life of another we’re now living out of?
If we think it is up to us to bring about in our lives a fruitfulness, then why does he say that He is the, I AM?

Rich

The End of our Rope

I love the picture here I’ve chosen for this piece, the caption under it read: “This was actually the poster shot for a work I completed in 1997 called "Faith". The idea was the examination of the fragility of life... we all dangle so precariously at the end of our rope... hanging by a thread, so to speak.”

“Along this journey you will notice that every good thing he has imprinted in your heart came at your most difficult moments. I don’t think for a moment that God orchestrates these times, because the consequences of living in a fallen world will provide ample opportunities. What amazes me is how he uses the most hurtful moments for his purpose.
You’ll even see him use what others intend for evil to purify your heart and teach you to depend on him even more.
Much of the curriculum for this journey lies in the very circumstances you’re begging God to change. This journey is at once more painful than you can imagine and filled with more wonder than you can contain. Don’t think it a broad road, for it is not. You’ll find even your dearest friends in Christ may not understand the most difficult places in your journey. But trust him to take you through them and he will. In doing so he will make you a little more like him.
I don’t know that we’ll ever get comfortable at the end of the rope, but at least we don’t have to dread it or think it proof he has abandoned us.” (He Loves Me-Wayne Jacobsen).

Rich

The dance of faith.