Season of Peace

Finding hope from fear, depression, anxiety and panic attacks.

questions

The Love of God: It’s His Pleasure

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The Love of God: Is God pleased with me?Whether spoken or thought, we often ask ourself, Is God pleased with me?  Is he happy with me?

It’s a good question to ask. Can we be pleasing to God? What does he think about us? What are his thoughts towards us?

Too often, we view God like we view our earthly father. As a child, before we had any thoughts of God, we looked to our earthly father. He was like God to us. The problem is that every earthly father falls short of modeling God as our Heavenly Father. The result is that we approach God a lot like we approach our imperfect, earthly father.

I believe one of our biggest hinderances to receiving God’s love is a wrong perception of his attitude towards us.

Under the old Covenant, the people were required to perform many rituals and sacrifices to please God. These works, duties, and rituals were all part of a cleansing process that appeased God and allowed the people to come to him. But under the new Convenant, Jesus became our sacrifice. He performed all of the works, duties and rituals that were required by the Law. He fulfilled the Law for us (Matthew 5:17). Under the new Covenant, all that’s required to please God is to believe in Jesus.

In John 6:28, Jesus’ disciples wanted to know how to please God. They asked Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

This is a great question!  We should all ask ourselves, “Lord, what would you like me to do? What are the works that you require of me?  What must I do to be pleasing to you?”

Take a moment and ask yourself these questions. Then, either written or mentally, make a list of the works you can do for God that would please him. You got ’em?

Now, let’s see how Jesus answered the disciples.  Jesus responded, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Did you catch that? The work of God is that you believe in Christ. What pleases God is that you put your hope in Christ because he fulfilled all the Law. It’s the work of Christ that makes you worthy–it’s not what you do or don’t do. Jesus completely pleased God, and our requirement is to simply believe that. When we fully trust that Jesus paid the full price for our sins and we receive him in our lives, then we are pleasing to God. It’s not about being good enough or doing all the right things–it’s about believing.

The writer of Hebrews put it this way, “Without faith (without believing), it’s impossible to please God” (Hebrews 6:11a).

When you believe in Christ, and trust in his work on the cross, then you are pleasing to God. Very pleasing! There’s nothing more you can do to make yourself worthy. First John 5:12-13 sums it up well: “So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. I write this to you who believe in the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.”

In Christ, you are perfectly pleasing to God! He is madly, passionately in love with you. He talks about you incessantly with great pride. He rejoices over you with singing and dancing (Zephaniah 3:17). You are his favorite! You are pleasing to God!

Prayer: Father, show me just how pleasing I am to you. Show me how much you love me and rejoice over me with singing and dancing.

Our Great High Priest – Answering Spiritual Questions

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Over the years, I’ve been asked many questions about faith, fear, sin, God, right and wrong. Some of the answers have been obvious. The Bible lays down clear boundaries regarding the issues of our life–things like repentance, forgiveness, obedience and sin.

Other areas are not so clear, like “Should I take this medication?”, “Should I change jobs?” or “Do you think I should go back to school?” These questions don’t have an obvious, straightforward answer.

So, how do we know what to do? How can we get clear direction for the important decisions of our life? Yes, we can talk to others. And, we can seek wise counsel. These are good, and the Bible says we should do these things. But, the ultimate choice still remains with us. We alone have to face the natural and supernatural consequences of our decisions.

In the past, under the old covenant, the people could only go to God through the high priest. Only he had direct access to God. Only he could go into the temple’s innermost chamber–the holy of holies. No other person could go there. All of your requests, all of your prayers, all of your questions, all of your concerns were funneled to God through this man, the high priest.

Today, under the new covenant, things are quite different. We no longer have an earthly high priest. We no longer funnel our prayers through an earthly man. Yes, we still have a High Priest; we still have one who goes before God on our behalf. Our High Priest is Jesus Christ. Because of him, we can now go directly to God ourselves. Jesus paved the way for us to approach God, not in our own goodness, but in goodness of Christ.

Here’s how the writer of Hebrews explains it: “We have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin” (4:14-15).

So, what does having Jesus as our High Priest do for us? What can we do now that we couldn’t do before? Listen, as the writer continues in verse 16: ” Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

If you have a question, a concern, a prayer, a fear, a time of need, then Jesus Christ has made a way for you to come directly to the throne of grace. You don’t have to go through a priest, a pastor, a minister or any earthly man. With Jesus as your new High Priest, the doors of heaven are open to you, because “God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9).

Prayer: Father, I know that I’m unworthy to stand before your throne of grace. My sin is disgusting in your sight for you are a perfect, holy, sinless God. But, you sent your Son to die for me and to make a way for me to come to you. Father, I receive the work of Jesus Christ in my life. I choose today to obey him that I may stand before your throne of grace in my time of need. Father, forgive me of my sins. I choose to turn away from my sin, and turn towards you. Give me the strength to follow you all the days of my life. I ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.