Pleasing God

 There are a lot of people who have the wrong concept of what is pleasing to God. They think that if they go to church, God will be pleased with them. They think it is all about religion. They think God will be pleased because they spend an hour of two in church every week. Now I will grant you that attending church is important to God, but that is not what is most pleasing to Him by a long shot.

Saul learned this lesson the hard way after he defeated the Amalekites at God's command. He was supposed to kill all the people and animals and destroy everything else, but he spared the king and allowed the people to take all of the good plunder. (I Samuel 15:22) When Samuel showed up after the battle he told Saul what was most pleasing to God. It was not the sacrifices that God was looking for, but obedience to His voice. It was not the fat of rams being burned for God, it was submission to Him.

So, how pleasing are you to God? We all need to realize that God wants a close personal relationship with each of us. That is His heart's desire. He is so pleased when we spend time with Him each day, so we can pour out our hearts to Him and listen for what He has to say to us. He will speak to us and show us what He wants us to do, if He sees our hearts, and He knows we will obey what He says. That is very pleasing to God.

The other part of pleasing God is submission to His authority. If all we do is go to church on Sunday, but the rest of the week we basically do what we want to do, we are not pleasing to God, at all. We are not honoring Him by that kind of relationship with Him, if we can even call it a relationship. How pleased would a wife be if she had a husband who spent a couple of hours with her each week, but the rest of the time he was gone, and he did not do anything she would like for him to do? See what I mean? When we obey His voice and fully submit to God, we are very pleasing to Him.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read I Samuel 18-20.