Am I pleasing to God?

I had a discussion during a worship practice over some song lyrics which is always a good thing to do. The question of our state of being pleasing before the Lord came up. Now the preface was where does the Bible say "I am pleased with you" You know, chapter and verse? Well it doesn't that specifically because that would require God speaking to us specifically which he doesn't often do. He is usually speaking to the disciples. 

I immediately responded that the concept of being pleasing to God was all over scripture. That is a benefit of being a child of God. We all know that Jesus was the beloved Son in whom God was well pleased not us! But, I would posit that because we are in Christ, because of his precious blood and wondrous work of the cross, I can be brought near as an adopted son.  I can come boldly to the throne to receive mercy and grace because I am now a family member. 

I do not shrink away from his presence because of feelings of guilt, or unworthiness, or wonder if I am pleasing to God...not anymore. I suppose that this is part of every Christian's growing experience, to believe the promises of God. To believe that I am accepted in the beloved and will make it into his presence on that final day. This I believe is why the author of Hebrews writes without faith it is impossible to please him. (Heb 11:6) If we do not believe and live in such a way that his truths are true for us then our relationship with God will be very different than what he desire for us. 

Colossians 1 teaches that God was pleased to not only fully dwell in Christ but to do this for the purpose of reconciling the world to him. 

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God was pleased to make peace with us. So I have to ask did God do these things, pleasing himself, to remain not pleased with his people? This really brings to mind the idea of an angry God in heaven who scowls as his people that he was so please to reconcile himself to. It doesn't really follow does it? But I know that our sin has a tendency to trap our minds in this cage. This is basic theology that perhaps we forget when we are looking at ourselves instead of God. If God has taken the time to reconcile himself to us it follows that he wanted a relationship with us. He desires us. 

Now I understand the reasoning for this. When I first heard the song that caused such tumult I though it was perhaps a bit light to say the least but I did not think that author was intending to communicate that we were pleasing to God in a vacuum.  If the author was intending to communicate that we are so pleasing and therefore God cannot but simply recognize our merit, then yes we would have a problem. But this gets back to the filter issue I wrote about before. If I am weighed down by my past or I am thinking about someone else's lack of righteousness then my lens might cause me come to the phrase in this song and think "We are not pleasing! Haven't you read Romans?" 

This is putting the Bible at odds with itself. Yes there is no one who does good, no not even one. But this is the reality of fallen humanity not the regenerated son of Christ. Yes we as sons and daughters of Christ are people who still sin, but the glorious gift is that we can turn to him who is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness. "Jesus paid it all", to quote another song. We do not believe that we are perfect by any means but we understand that our filthy garments have been replaced by robes of righteousness. This is what makes relationship with him possible. 

See if we forget this truth then we fall into a performance based relationship. We seek relationship through obedience, however the the real way it works is because of my relationship with him that he established I desire obedience because of love for him.  

I wanted to exhort us to not walk around with our hands covering our face just in case God is pitching burning embers our way. God is pleased with us as we walk with him. This is not to say that perhaps some of us do not have some repentance and Christian discipline to do, but God is not shocked at our failures to be perfect. We should always strive to keep short accounts with God for sure. It isn't different than going to seek forgiveness on account of any transgression that we seek to repair for the sake of relationship. 

I walk with my head held high not because I know I am some awesome human specimen, but because "I know that my redeemer lives." To quote another song. I know that I have a relationship with the most powerful, most beautiful, most loving, most forgiving, most welcoming, most just, most good, most best-est God ever! My words fail to even give majesty to him, but I know that he loves me and thus I try to be pleasing to him as Paul writes many times over and thus I love him in return. 

Now I didn't have the benefit of this one in my back pocket during the discussion but I am thankful because it lead to this entry, but I am glad but the Bible does teach this:

For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

(Psalm 149:4)

This psalm teaches that God does delight in his people, he takes pleasure in them and that he beautifies them with salvation. God did this very thing, he came and beautified his bride with his righteousness. Jesus made his bride beautiful because of his gift of redemption. Now we cannot say we are pleasing in a vacuum just as I would not say I made my wife Kimberly beautiful because of her distance to me. Only God has the power to cleanse and make beauty from ashes and this is the very thing he did.

This is not simply Israel because remember John teaches that each of us have been grafted into the promise though Christ. We are part of the people of God. We can know we are pleasing to God as much as Flanders knows he is pleasing to God.

So are we pleasing to God? Yes, but for you to believe that perhaps you might need to pray and talk with God about it and do some heart examination. Be encouraged.

thanks

A Tale of Two Fathers

So now that Raphael has come I am a father, I have been thinking.

I know that God is our father, but I have been grappling with a full translation of that means. When talking with people about what this looks like, it is easy to simply say that out father in heaven will take care of us and not allow bad things to happen and always come through, which are comforting things to say.  But things do not always play out in this way.  What I mean is that yes I understand that God is our father, but do we really understand what a good father is?  I read verses like Mathew 7:7-11

 7“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

I read that and I think it does seem quite simple.  But in reality it rarely seems to work out that way.
I am sure that in a few years Raphael will come to me and ask not for a fish, as we tend to avoid seafood, but more appropriately for a burrito, and I being a great father, I will happily agree, assuming it is meal time and not spoiling any other planned food.  I  understand how the transaction/relationship works and yet I do not find that it is that simple with my heavenly father.

Things do not always seem to be given, get answered, get better, or become immediately clear.

I have spent many hours, days, years even asking for things that I do not see the answers to of yet.  I know the qualifiers in James about not asking in selfishness and asking in doubt.  Yet I still see very little answers to specific prayers and requests that this passage in Mathew makes so simple.

Is it my understanding of a good father that complicates matters?  I would agree any good father would give something to a son that was within reason and relatively ease as the verse in Mathew seems to indicate.  This jives with a human understanding of what a father would do, the verse even implies that evil fathers do this. But often my experience with God is not that simple. I ask and do not receive and after enough time my requests start to seem like they are being ignored.   Sometimes though they do seem like they are answered, but with stones, and sometimes sharp ones that were hurled in my direction.

This would makes me conclude that God is not a father or at least not a good father, but, these are unacceptable options to a Christian.  So perhaps my idea of what a father is, is not quite right.

So is it possible that when the Bible uses the term father that it is trying to communicate some theological truth to the way God loves and interacts with his creation rather than giving a label to how things actually work based on our limited knowledge of fathers?  God after-all put his own son to death and asked a similar thing of Abraham. And Christ tells us that to follow him is meant to mean taking up our own crosses and following him to Calvary, death. Death seems more like a stone than a fish.

Perhaps my ideas of good parenting falls short of what God actually does with his people. Perhaps my idea that a father would do everything in his power to help his child avoid pain is wrong. Perhaps my idea that a father would give a child something that was easily within his power to do so is wrong. Perhaps my idea of even answering a child in what appears to be a timely manner is wrong. Perhaps my demanding that God act in a way that I interpret any good father would act towards a child is wrong. And that, is hard.

God has his own will that I am supposed to seek. I can ask but often my will is probably not what is best.  I think the metaphor of the father does not always communicate what we think it means. I know that there are a lot of positive ways to answer the question of "well why not?" A parent will obviously refuse a child who asks a request that will cause them harm, I get that. The rub again is when the request is just for help or for a job or for relief or for direction or for protection, and they simply seem to go unanswered.

Answers come in his timing and will, now this is different from an earthy father. God our Father is sovereign, he is just, he is love, he is God.  He has more behind the meaning of father than my limited understanding.  His timing and will are perfect, our earthy fathers are not. It often feels like he is more interested in my growth than my happiness, and that is also different than an earthy father. In the asking, in the waiting, God is with us. Maybe he is not offering immediate relief. Maybe he is offering his presence. This is something much more than any earthy father can offer. I cannot always be there for Raphael simply because I will not always be present.

So maybe there is a better way that God fathers than I can manage, a way I can't fully understand, and that is good thing. He fathers by causing me to grow and being present with me.  He fathers better than I can hope or imagine.  He loves me.

thanks