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A Life That Pleases God
The secret to living a life that
pleases God
Some time back when I guest blogged on a friend’s website, I
aroused some controversy (which is no news now, but at that time it was
unusual). Though the topic was whether or not church attendance is pleasing to
God, the underlying question was one I had thought about, pondered, and prayed
over many times and much over the past months and years:
How can I please God in my
day-to-day life?
The
Bible describes actions that are pleasing to God. Does that mean He’s always
checking up on me to see how well I’m doing them?
That I’m gaining His smile or
His frown based
on my efforts rather than on what Christ has done?
The
thought was abhorrent to me even before I fully understood it or could put it
into words.
How could I say that my efforts
(be they church attendance or something else) are pleasing to God if
they don’t spring out of faith in Jesus Christ?
After
all, Enoch pleased God not because of his efforts but because of his intimate
relationship in faith.
Because without faith it
is IMPOSSIBLE to please God.
So
I’m posting here some of what I wrote at the very end of that post on my
friend’s website.
*****
Can
a woman who has a sterile relationship with her gentle, loving husband decide
that she’s going to produce a baby to please him?
She could produce a lifeless
doll (dead
works brought forth out of dead faith) and pretend it’s a baby.
Maybe many people around her
will even pretend along with her, because they’re all carrying their own
lifeless dolls. Maybe that’s all they know.
But
the real baby, the fruit of the womb, will be produced when the wife yields
herself fully to her kind and caring husband, in that intimate trusting
relationship born of mutual love.
The loving husband is pleased
in that intimate relationship.
Then, ultimately, the husband
is pleased in the beautiful fruit born out of that intimate relationship: a
living, breathing human being. Living works produced by living
faith.
Though there is effort involved
in birthing a baby (just as there is effort involved in the outworking of the
Christian life), a woman cannot produce that fruit of the womb in her own
strength: that fruit of her life is a gift of God.
Just
so, the fruit of my life that is well-pleasing to God is the works that are
born out of my intimate, loving, trusting faith relationship with Jesus Christ,
“Christ in you.”
The Holy Spirit of Christ works
within me to grow this fruit, to bring forth these natural works.
Those
works, those living works, pouring out of a life of intoxicating love, result
in a sweet savor in the nostrils of God.
This isn’t because I have
produced them from my own efforts, it isn’t because I try to discern the will
of God and then try to carry it out on my own.
Instead, it’s because they
spring out naturally, produced from the intimate relationship of mutual love.
Though
church attendance or any other effort might ultimately be wood, hay, stubble or
a filthy rag, my confidence can rest assured in the truth that in
Jesus Christ and by His power, my life really can be pleasing
to God.
I’m Rebecca
Davis, a writer, editor, wife, mother, grandmother, speaker, friend,
advocate for the oppressed, and lover of Jesus who lives in Greenville, South
Carolina.
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