Please

On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.

1 Thessalonians 2:4

Who do you seek to please? 

I tend toward being a people pleaser.  I want people to like me, to enjoy my company.  What better way to achieve that than to make sure they are happy.  But there are times when happiness is not what is needed.  An honest word of truth is not always pleasant but often needed. 

Paul says that we speak as ones approved by God entrusted with the gospel.  We speak the gospel.  But the gospel is not always pleasant to hear.  It is God's great message of love, grace, and forgiveness.  It is available for all people, but it requires that we admit some painful things.  We must admit that we are sinful.  We are broken.  We are hurting.  We must admit that we cannot fix ourselves.  All of our best efforts lead us nowhere.  We must admit that we need someone else to save us.  We need a Savior.  We must confront our pride, our sin, our weakness.  We must allow Jesus to be our forgiver, our leader, our Savior.  Sometimes we don't want to admit those things or hear those words.  But they are needed. 

If we seek to please men, we keep those words to ourselves. 

If we seek to please God, we share them not to condemn but to love. 

Who do you seek to please?

Free

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:32

Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday or more commonly known as Easter Sunday!  What a great and glorious day!  The sun was shining!  The weather was warm in New England.  Best of all, the tomb was still empty as it has been ever since that first Easter morning some 2,000 years ago.  Jesus is not in the grave!  As the angel proclaimed, he is alive! He has risen just as he said!

In light of Resurrection Sunday, I am reminded that I am free!  The chains that once held me, the bonds that once kept me in have been broken.  Not by my power, but by Christ.  He has defeated sin, death, and the evil one.  His death on the cross paid the price for my sin.  His resurrection broke the power of sin.  It holds no sway.  I am free.  I have been bought with a price.  I am free. 

Some days I forget that I am a free man.  I begin to believe the lies of satan that I am still chained, still bound.  I begin to lift my chains again, but Jesus shines his truth into my life that I may know that I am free.  My chains have been broken.  I have been transformed by his power and I am being transformed!  I am free. 

Are you free?

Delight

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

The prophet Zephaniah is giving hope to beleaguered Jerusalem.  They have been punished for their idolatry.  Zephaniah offers a vision of hope that though they are punished now a day is coming when God will be with them.  He will take great delight in them.  He will quiet them with his love.  He will rejoice over them with singing. 

Have you ever stopped to realize that God delights in you? 

That the God who created everything loves you, he delights in you.  He rejoices over you with singing. 

You are the delight of God.  You are the apple of his eye.  You are his prized possession. 

No matter what others have said about you or what you have said about yourself remember this:

YOU are GOD's DELIGHT! 

Take a moment today to allow God to delight in you, to quiet you with his love, and to rejoice over you with singing.  Know that you are loved by the Most High God!

Assumption

"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags..."

Isaiah 46:6

Assumptions. 

We all have them.  Some we carry knowingly, some we carry unknowingly until we are confronted with them.

Over the course of the last week, I heard the same assumption over and over. 

ASSUMPTION: I must do good works to make myself right with God.

This assumption can be expressed and played out in many ways.  At it's core is the idea that we have to work to be good for God.  It's the idea that God will not love me unless I somehow become good.  It's the idea that I have to settle a score with God.  I must do enough good things to balance out the bad ones that I have done.  If I want to please God, then I have to work to make myself right with him. 

The Bible says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags.  Dirty, stinking, disgusting rags to God.  They do not please God.  They do not make us good enough for God.  They don't make us good.  There is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God. 

ASSUMPTION: I must do good works to make myself right with God. 

REALITY: God's grace is the only thing that makes me right with him. 

The reality is that we can do nothing to make ourselves right.  Our good works don't make us right or good.  Only the grace of God expressed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus makes us right with God. 

We don't do good works to make us right.  We do good works out of a deep appreciation and gratitude for what God has done.  We do GOOD in response to the GREAT thing he has done in forgiving us through the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Why do you do good?  To earn God's favor or in response to his favor?