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With You I Am Well Pleased

A humorous series of pictures on social media shows dogs’ expressions before and after being told that they are “good dogs.”  We, too, want to hear from God one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but are we willing to make it our goal to please Him and walk in obedience?

I.  John 12:42-43.  Ever donate to some cause just to get a trinket in return?  Though our motives are often selfish, we often tell ourselves that we attend church and do good deeds because we love God and others.  But, it is with ourselves mostly that we are pleased.  Fear of many things keep us from obeying God’s commands and pleasing Him.  We must be careful not to be at home in this world (2 Corinthians 5:1-5).

II.  Mark 1:9-11.  The life of Jesus is a good study in how to live to be pleasing to God.  When He was baptized, we see His Father expressing this.  We also see this at His transfiguration in Matthew 17:5.  We understand that Jesus pleased God because He was even obedient to death (Philippians 2:5-8), but the great thing is that through His obedience, He gave us the opportunity to please God (Hebrews 5:7-9).

III.  1 Corinthians 10:1-6.  God is not a soccer mom who has an over-inflated view of His child.  Nor does He lavish fake praise when He knows how separated from Him because of sin we are.  Heaven is not a participation trophy!  Instead, we are warned not to repeat the sins of those who have gone before us because God was not pleased with them.  By living by faith, we are able to please Him (2 Corinthians 5:6-10).

No, we don’t earn our way into heaven by good works, but we must be an obedient child to one day hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”  That would not be possible for us to hear if Jesus had not gone before us and obeyed perfectly to the cross.

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Move Me Close

Open my ears, O God, to hear you.
Move me close, for me to be near you.
Every thought and action please you,
Faithful till my spirit sees you.

Christ is Lord! Help me to obey him.
Never may my heart betray him,
No excuse to fail or fault him.
Make my life and words exalt him.

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No Undertone

To joy in Christ, let run no undertone
Of sadness, heavy heart or grief;
Let fullest comfort flow from Jesus’ throne,
Whose river holds no hidden reef.

Let heavenly peace completely rule the mind,
Unmixed with cares and low concerns;
Blow gently in my soul the Spirit’s wind,
From which no worldly fear returns.

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Gave Him as Head Over All

As I’ve taught my four kids how to drive, I’ve wished for a brake on the floor of the passenger side of my vehicle.  It’s just so hard to give up control over many realms of our lives–but especially when it comes to spiritual things.  Allowing Jesus to be lord or head over us is difficult.

In answer to the popular bumper sticker, “God is my co-pilot,” Christians who understand this principle of Jesus as head have said, “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.”  This doesn’t mean at all that God should control us as robots, but rather that we need to live our lives in submission to Him.

I.  Ephesians 1:15-23.  Our Head is exalted above every name.  All other churches, groups, clubs, organizations, and businesses are temporal.  Many do a lot of good in the world for a lot of people, but when one day the elements melt in the heat, all of them will be gone.  Only the church that Jesus promised to build (Matthew 16:18) and bought with His blood (Acts 20:28), His bride, His body is eternal.  God invests so much, including His great power, into those who make up His body.

II.  Matthew 8:8-10.  For the church, our Head is over all things.  All authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus through His death, burial, and resurrection.  Even sinners will be put under His feet in the Judgment to come (Hebrews 10:12-14).  He understands what it means to be our Head, but we struggle to submit to our Head.  Sin and selfishness or adding or taking away from our Head’s Word exalts ourselves as Head over us, no matter how we justify it to ourselves.

III.  2 Peter 1:3-4.  Our Head’s body is the fullness of Him who fills all in all.  In all other groups, there is a separation between the management and the workers.  Not so in the one eternal organization, the Lord’s church.  Using marriage to illustrate the relationship of the Head to His body (Ephesians 5:22-24), we understand that Jesus gives us every blessing so that we may be partakers of the divine nature.  In other words, He fills us and we are His fullness.

Now that is a Head that we can freely submit ourselves to!  His bride does submit to the Bridegroom.  The big question is–are we as individuals submitting to our Head to be part of His bride?

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Go Beyond My Puny Prayers

Ephesians 3.14-21

Father, go beyond my puny prayers —
Your power is able, far above my thoughts,
To accomplish more that I could ever imagine —
All praise is yours and glory in the church!

You act behind the scenes that we can see,
Providing from your glorious, boundless riches
For inner strength, for Christ to dwell in us —
His home in our hearts — what greater thing to ask?!

How wide! How long! How high! How deep his love!
Send down our roots in him to keep us strong.
What we sorely lacked he makes complete —
My joy to know he hears and cures and cares!

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Will Not Lead to Your Glory

When we look at the time of Judges as God’s people seeking to live for Him in an evil world all around them without compromise or complacency, the parallels to today are evident.

One of the greatest struggles is having the courage to do what God asks when it is so easy to shrink back.

I.  Judges 4:1-10.  Barak had already been told by God to free His people in battle.  This is what the prophet, Deborah, told him when she summoned him.  Yes, Barak was reluctant to obey.  Lacking the courage to do what God had asked of him, he put his trust in Deborah rather than God.  If she would go with him, he would obey.  This road, she told him, would not lead to his glory.

II.  James 4:17.  We often read this account and teach about headship.  Because a man wouldn’t obey, his glory was given to a woman.  But there’s more going on here.  Barak’s sin was one of omission.  He knew the good he ought to do, but he chose to do nothing.  This was Adam’s sin as well.  While his wife was being tempted by the serpent, Adam, who was with her (Genesis 3:6) did and said nothing.  The saddest struggle God’s people have today in an evil culture is our inaction in the face of opportunities for the Kingdom that God gives us each and every day.

III.  2 Peter 1:3-4.  Jesus, however, seized the opportunity to die in our place, so we might share in His glory.  Because He obeyed, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him (Hebrews 5:7-10).  Therefore, the road that leads to our glory is one of obedience to God’s commands.  We must NOT do what we should NOT do, and do what we should do.

This means, unlike Barak, living out what the pages of Scripture tell us to do or don’t do while surrounded by an immoral culture that calls for you to compromise or be complacent.

Do you have the courage to obey though you may be the only one around you to do so?

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I don’t want to change

Oh, Lord, I want to change, but then again I don’t want to, either. I’d rather remain in my self-centered ways. I’d rather blame someone else for my lack of success, for my stunted spiritual growth, for my coasting through life without significant goals.

I’d rather inhabit my small world than create an ever-expanding universe of love and brotherhood.


Father, I confess my contentment with mediocrity, my truce with the world, my complacency over eternity.


Chip away, O God, at the hardness of my heart.