Tag: Pleasing God

Digging in Deeper: Romans 8:5-8

1 Comment

“For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things I desired when I created this blog was to have a space where people interacted with the ideas I was putting forth. More specifically, I hoped to see it become a forum to foster interactions with people who don’t necessarily agree with the ideas in order to have convicted and civil dialogues about them together. Over the last year and a half that’s begun to happen…sort of. If you are someone who bothers reading the comments, one thing that has become clear over the last couple of years is just how profoundly folks committed to other worldview positions don’t understand the Christian worldview. Paul here explains why. Let’s take a look at this with him.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 11:4-6

Leave a comment

“By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith. By faith Enoch was taken away, and so he did not experience death. He was not to be found because God took him away. For before he was taken away, he was approved as one who pleased God. Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What does it take to please God? While you may not ever ask that question directly or out loud, I suspect your inherent need for an answer to it animates a fair sight more of your life than you’re comfortable admitting. Even if you aren’t giving any thought to the Christian God, the higher power you happen to have embraced leaves you wondering at least occasionally how to make it happy. With the God of the Bible, pleasing Him is a whole lot simpler an affair than you might expect. Through the lens of a couple of examples out of the very beginning of God’s story, let’s talk about what it takes to make Him happy.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Micah 6:8 (Round two)

Leave a comment

“Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
— ‭‭Micah‬ ‭6:8‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

So, yesterday we talked about the sarcastic response the people had to God’s case against them. God’s case was that they had left Him without cause. Their response was to sarcastically ask what He wanted from them? Bowed knees? A sacrifice? A thousand sacrifices? Their own children sacrificed? What would make Him happy? From there we talked about the fact that we sometimes feel similarly in our own lives. What does God want from us? What is it we can do that will make Him happy? Today, we get an answer.

Read the rest…

Making God Happy

Leave a comment

This past Sunday, we continued our new series, Being Useful, by looking at the first character trait on Peter’s list that will make us more useful to Jesus. Item number one: Faith. What is faith? What does it look like to have faith? And how does growing in faith make us more useful to Jesus? Read on to find out.

Making God Happy

We were sitting in a restaurant the other day and over my shoulder a family had been seated at a pretty large table.  They needed the space.  The waitress came over like she would for any customer and took drink orders.  Not long after, they called her back.  They wanted to make some special requests.  Then they called her back again.  Then she came to take their food orders…and they made some special requests.  Then the drinks came out.  And those weren’t right.  The appetizers were wrong too.  So was their dinner.  The manager came to the table at least once, maybe twice.  It took a couple of trips by the waitress to get dessert ordered and right too.  Now, this was a busy restaurant and certainly mistakes are occasionally made in the industry.  But as we looked around the room, we didn’t notice anybody else getting the amount of specialized attention they were getting.  Now, they were never ugly that we could tell, but the fact that just about all of their stuff wasn’t quite right began to suggest a pattern.  The pattern wasn’t a restaurant that couldn’t get its stuff together.  The problem was a family that was hard to please. 

Read the rest…