God’s Pleasure in Repentance (7 of 9)
Galatians 1:10 -- For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
In repentance we please God, and ultimately this is the objective of the Christian’s life. I have been saying over and over that we serve God for Him and not for us, we repent for Him not us, we are even saved for Him and not us, and ultimately our highest point of joy and satisfaction is to know that we are pleasing to Him. This post excites me more than any of the prior because it forces me into thinking about God’s pleasure in me.
Through continual repentance God sanctifies a believer and sets them apart, He makes them altogether different than the rest of the world. The repentant believer has been marked by God, and God looks at His believer with joy. The Father made it very clear at Jesus’ baptism and at the transfiguration that He was well pleased with His only begotten Son. The Son pleased the father more than anything else, and it is to the Son that we look in hopes of bringing that same pleasure to God. It is only by repentance that we become like the Son, and thus please God. When we turn away from our own way and towards the way of the Son God is well pleased. Does that bring you joy? Do you revel in that fact that little sinful you by repentance can bring pleasure to The Almighty? If the fact that you can bring God joy does not thrill you then you need to seek Him, and plead for Him to give you the desire to please Him. It is the ultimate satisfaction to know that you are pleasing to God. Repentance is all about God’s pleasure. Forget for a moment about pleasing your pastor, teacher, friends, and even your spouse, and ask yourself what you can do to please God. You will find that repentance from your ways unto His ways is all you can do. Pleasing your spouse, parents, etc… in a Godly manner certainly would be repentance for most of us, and we should do that, but ultimately to please God.
Seek to repent and to give God pleasure, even right now.
This post has left me feeling inclined to remark briefly again about God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign. Most people would be horrified if they realized how sovereign God really is. We must, however, never let this thought of sovereignty over shadow the pleasure and displeasure which we may bring to God. If pondering the doctrine of God’s sovereignty does not drive you into closer fellowship with Him and a greater desire to serve Him, but instead makes you feel more like a helpless pawn simply being manipulated by the will of God, then you have a very wrong idea of God’s sovereignty. Again, God is not callous, and we do bring Him pleasure, and displeasure.
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