… and pleases God our Savior …
Summary: Pleasing God often sounds like a daunting task, yet our God is pleased when we simply trust him with our prayers.
If you were God, what would please you?
I suppose that is a rather silly question, but asking it helps us put ourselves in God’s position. If we were God, would we want our creation to please us, or would we have to compromise and “settle for” whatever our creation decided to do?
Obviously, if you’re the “Creator,” you would expect your creation to be pleasing to you.
But what does that mean?
Let’s imagine that God is a carpenter. He likes working with wood and is excited to be able to make beautiful furniture. Using his tools, he cuts and shapes the wood. Then he finishes the wood so that it shines beautifully. And then …
What?
Does he keep it for himself?
No!
The Creator wants to share it with someone, just like you would if you were a craftsman who worked in wood.
We are, after all, made in God’s image.
Doing “good” is pleasing to God because we are “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
At the same time, doing what God asks and bringing our prayers, petitions, and intercessions to him along with our thanksgiving, brings us closer to God. He likes that, too (1 Peter 5:7).
It is true that people are not “good” in the sense that God is good (Luke 18:19), but that does not mean that Paul is wrong when he says what we do is good can please God. Especially when what we do is bringing our prayers to him.
Application: Do what is good and pleases God our Savior.
Food for Thought: What else comes to mind as something that might please God?
It pleases God when we trust Him. When we exercise faith in Him. In fact without that, we will not please God.
Hebrews 11: 5 – 6: 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. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Thank you, Rich!
I love the Enoch reference. 🙂