If you are like me, you sometimes wake up to a new day and offer a prayer to God. Sometimes my prayer (as I again prayed this morning) goes something like this: ‘Lord, help me to serve and obey you today. Help me to love and honour you today. Help me to glorify you and walk in your ways. Help me to please you today.’
As soon as I had made that prayer, an obvious thought came into my mind: ‘And what is it that pleases God?’ I thought of some biblical texts, and I knew that in my own personal concordance I had a list of such passages. So here are a few thoughts about some of the things that we know will please God.
And let me start by saying that in one sense, any good parent knows what it is that their children can please them with. They will want their children to have a close and loving relationship with them. They will want their children to be polite, respectful, obedient and so on. They will want their children to grow up to be good, upstanding citizens – those they can be proud of.
In many ways that would be what our heavenly Father is looking for in his own children. One big difference however is this: simply being born does not make us children of God. To be his child we must be born again. Our natural state is one of sin and selfishness, and we are not able to please God.
A few biblical truths can be mentioned here:
-We are by nature sons of disobedience
-We are by nature sons of the devil
-We are by nature sons of perdition
The first thing to do is to actually become a son of God. That is the essential action we must take in order to please God. We become his son or daughter by faith and repentance in Christ, God’s remedy for our alienation from him. As we read in Hebrews 11:6, “without faith it is impossible to please him”.
So becoming a member of God’s family is the necessary first step. We must be in the Son in order to earn the Father’s pleasure. As we read in the gospels when Jesus was baptised: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (see for example Matthew 3:17).
But once we are part of his family, there are plenty of things said in Scripture about how we can keep pleasing him. Simply taking a few passages which contain the word ‘please’ is a good way to approach this. Here are just some of these texts.
One broader text is 1 Thessalonians 4:1 in which Paul writes: “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.” So all that was said in this epistle, and in the rest of the New Testament writings, provide us with what we need to know about pleasing God.
One specific passage is Romans 12:1 which says: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” Given that we are doubly bought and owned by God – through creation and redemption – fully offering ourselves to him is eminently sensible – and something pleasing to God.
This thought of a sacrificial lifestyle for God is also found in Hebrews 13:16. It says this: “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” When we serve God and others as an expression of our saving faith, that is something God is pleased with.
A third passage which runs with this theme of sacrifice is this: “I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18). As we serve one another, we also serve and please our Lord.
And this command to serve one another is also found in 1 Timothy 5:4: “But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.”
Another text found in the book of Romans is this from 14:17-18: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.”
And in Ephesians 5:8-10 Paul gives us more insights into this matter: “Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.” So there we are told to grow in discovering that which pleases our Lord.
These and so many other passages give us clear directions as to how we might please God. Indeed, the hundreds of imperatives found in the New Testament give us more than enough information on what we might do to actively please God.
So in a very real sense to please God is simply to do what he asks of us. It is simply to obey him. And just as in a parent-child relationship, parents are pleased when their children readily and cheerfully obey them, and not just begrudgingly or unwillingly, so too our heavenly Father delights in us wanting and desiring to do that which he asks of us.
And God knows that when we do this, it is for our own good as well. As Deuteronomy 6:24 explains, “And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always.” He is pleased when we are pleased to be in relationship with him and do as he commands.
His commandments are not burdensome but are meant to help us best flourish and succeed in life (see 1 John 5:3 for example). Just as parents want what is best for their children, so too God wants what is best for us, his children. And as should be clear by now, a love relationship is one that entails obedience.
A few concluding quotes underline this truth:
“Love is not just a sentiment. Love is a great controlling passion and it always expresses itself in terms of obedience.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“The final test of love is obedience.” A. W. Tozer
“It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. And love means following the commands of God. ‘Do you love Me?’ Jesus asked Peter. ‘Feed My lambs.’ He was not asking, ‘How do you feel about Me?’ for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.” Elisabeth Elliot
