Living to please God – Part 1

The pursuit of heaven-bound believers is to please the Lord. Apostle Paul emphasises the necessity of pleasing the Lord and not men in our calling, ministry and evangelistic outreaches, and in all our activities in life. Pleasing men instead of God disqualifies us from being the servants of Christ. The evidence that we love God is in pleasing Him with our heart, soul and mind, which is the result of our Christian experiences of salvation, sanctification and Holy Ghost baptism.

We need faith to please God. “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” Sinners cannot please the Lord without the foundational experience of salvation obtained by grace. Religion, tradition and holding onto certain doctrines of the Bible do not amount to pleasing the Lord. Conversely, until a believer lays self on the altar, he cannot please the Lord fully. Occupying a particular position in the congregation does not make anyone to please the Lord. We begin to please God when we totally submit ourselves to Him in faith. To have a good relationship with the Lord as members of the body of Christ, pleasing Him should be uppermost in our heart.

Faith enables us to please the Lord. It transforms us, brings the grace of God into our lives and hearts, and gives us the mind of Christ. Through saving faith, He grants us the privilege to become children of God. Only then can we have the disposition, decision, devotion and direction to please God alone.

Just as such foremost personalities in the Bible like Enoch, and especially our Lord Jesus Christ pleased God, we must be determined to please Him. With the mind of Christ and His nature in us, we should live and walk to please God. We should understand that the higher our calling, the greater our faith should be. After salvation, our faith needs to increase so that we would bear the persecutions and challenges that come our way.

It is only the life of faith that can please God. Take the case of Cain and Abel; they both offered sacrifices to God, but God rejected that of Cain and accepted Abel’s sacrifice because “by faith (Abel)offered to God a more excellent sacrifice.

In spite of the corruption, defilement and contradiction of sinners around him, Enoch walked consistently with God in righteousness and according to God’s will. This was possible because he was in agreement with God. Constant, daily and practical agreement with God makes us to please Him. Walking with Him demands lively, active and dynamic faith. Faith that is dead, dumb, dormant, devilish, man-centred and self-centred cannot please God.

Faith must go with action and practical evidence. By faith, Noah prepared “an ark to save his house …and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” As we hear about heaven, hell and the Second Coming of Christ, though we have not seen any of these, we should believe. Like Noah, our faith in the word of God should make us serve the Lord acceptably “with reverence and godly fear.”

When God called Abraham to leave the known for the unknown, he “obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” Every believer needs such demonstration, concentration and confirmation of faith. Faith in God through Christ’s atoning sacrifice pleases the Lord. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph all pleased the Lord because they had faith in God.

Faith turns us away from sin to the Saviour, from self to the Sanctifier, from the world to the Lord, from the devil to the Conqueror and Captain of our salvation, and from every object or personality to Christ alone. Unlike the time of old, today, we have so much encouragement, grace and examples to demonstrate greater faith. We too can walk and live by faith if we focus our attention on God and hold the testimony of our faith “without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised).”

• Further Reading (King James Version): Hebrews 11:6; Galatians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; Romans 8:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:15; Isaiah 2:6; Judges 14:3; Hebrews 11:5,6; Matthew 3:17; 17:5; John 8:29; Philippians 2:5. Hebrews 11:4; 9:22; 11:5; Genesis 5:22-24; Amos 3:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:1; James 2:17,19,20,26; Hebrews 11:7; 12:28; 11:8; Isaiah 51:2; Hebrews 11:11; 10:23.