Category: Devotion of the Day

PLEASING GOD

I do always those things that please him.
John 8:29

We live to please someone, ourselves, other people or God. Jesus “pleased not himself” (Rom. 15:3). We are not to live to please men. “Do I seek to please men?” (Gal. 1:10). “Not as pleasing men but God” (I Thess. 2:4). We are to please our neighbor for his good to edification (Rom. 15:2). Paul said he pleased all men, seeking, not his profit, but theirs, that they might be saved (I Cor. 10:33).

We are to please God, as our Lord said in our text. God was pleased in His Son (Mt. 3:17). He was not pleased with the Israelites in the wilderness (I Cor. 10:5). We had better take warning from them, for “these things happened unto us for ensamples.” Enoch pleased God (Heb. 11:5). We cannot please God in the flesh (Rom. 8:8). It is impossible without faith (Heb. 11:6). But as we submit to God He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). Then we are to live so as to please Him who hath chosen us to be soldiers (II Tim. 2:3,4). And if we please Him we get answers to our prayers (I Jno. 3:22).

Whom are you living to please?

NOTWITHSTANDING THE LORD…

At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me…Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.
II Timothy 4:16, 17

Paul mentions the failure of men, but he majors on the faithfulness of God. We had better learn early to put no confidence in the flesh – in ourselves or in others. Our most familiar friend, which did eat of our bread, may lift up his heel against us. Our Lord’s disciples forsook Him and fled. Paul is tasting the same bitter experience. In his loneliness he begs Timothy to “come before winter.”

We can easily grow wretched over the failure of men, even the best of them. There is so much fickleness and so many Christians fail us. We had better resolve early to expect little of men, much of God. Major on His faithfulness! We have His promise and we may be sure of His presence, for the one assures the other.

Raise your sights higher than men. Then, if even your father and mother forsake you, the Lord will take you up.