Pleasing the Lord

If you say you’re a Christian and that you love Jesus and walk in obedience to him yet you neglect him day after day by not praying, you really don’t know him. Your house is not on the rock; it’s on sand, and it’s going to collapse completely in hard times.

You cannot get to know Jesus only by going to church. You must have a day-by-day, hour-by-hour conversation with the Lord. You must get to know him, grow to love him, and desire to know what pleases him.

Too often, we consider the Lord’s commandments to be something burdensome, restricting to our personal freedom. Rather than embracing his words to us, we look for ways to escape them. We distort God’s grace by making it out to be some kind of tunnel out of the prison of his law, but grace is actually a teacher of holiness. “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12, NKJV).

The man on the rock embraces and joyfully fulfills the Lord’s commands. He doesn’t see God as someone with a belt in his hand, always ready to chastise him. No, he sees the Lord as one with arms outstretched to him, saying, “Come to me and receive life, receive strength. I’ll carry you through.” God’s Word shows us what it takes to build upon the rock of our salvation.

Enoch obeyed God with the sole objective of pleasing him. “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, ‘and was not found, because God had taken him’; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5). Enoch was translated because he pleased the Lord.

The apostle John says, “And whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22), or “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11).