The Will Of God - His Pleasure

Psalm 103:21

It is the desire of every believer to obey the will of God’s holy pleasure. The psalmist describes God’s servants as those who “do his pleasure.” A loving child wants to do more than merely avoid his father’s disapproval. He seeks to know and do that which is his father’s pleasure. A loving wife wants more than to do just what her husband requires. She wants to please her husband in all things. Even so, the believer, the person who has experienced the grace of God in Christ, wants something infinitely greater than to avoid the wrath of God. He wants to do the will of God. He wants to do that which gives pleasure, satisfaction, and delight to his heavenly Father. We cannot add to God’s infinite pleasure. Yet we earnestly seek to do that which pleases him. Do we not? Do you seek to do the will of your heavenly Father’s pleasure?

There are some things revealed in the Bible that please God (Mic. 6:6-8). Micah declares that it is good for us to “do justly” - To deal with others in honesty and uprightness, “to love mercy” - To be merciful toward the needs of others and love doing so, “and to walk humbly with thy God” - To always live in the conscious awareness of our sinfulness and God’s holiness, and of our incalculable debt to our God and Savior (I Cor. 4:7; Eph. 5:18-21; Phil. 2:1-4). This is my constant prayer: God, give me grace that I not dishonor your name or offend in thought, word, or deed. Give me grace that I may not offend your children, bring reproach upon the name of your dear Son or the gospel of your free grace in him, or grieve your Holy Spirit.

Yet, I am fully aware of the fact that the only way sinful men and women can please God is by faith in Christ (Heb. 11:5-6). In this sense too, regarding the will of God’s holy pleasure, we say, “I delight to do thy will, O God.” How I delight to trust Christ as my Substitute! God is pleased with his Son. God is pleased with us only as we are in his Son (Matt. 17:5; Eph. 1:6). Still, God is pleased with our feeble efforts to please him for his Son’s sake, even as he was pleased with the prayer of Solomon (1 Kg. 3:10) and with Enoch’s walk (Heb. 11:5). Years ago, when my daughter was just a small girl and she expected me home from a trip, she picked a bouquet of flowers for me and waited my arrival. When I drove up, she came running through the yard with her bouquet of flowers behind her back. When she reached them out to me, with that beaming smile that said, “I love you Daddy and picked these flowers just for you,” I took from her hand the prettiest, most fragrant bouquet of flowers anyone ever enjoyed. It was just a handful of ugly dandelions, for which I had absolutely no use; but that was the prettiest, most pleasing bouquet I ever saw. Why? Ask any father! My daughter picked it just for me! Thus, as we are “accepted in the Beloved,” in our special relationship to God as his dear children, our heavenly Father accepts of poor, feeble, sinful efforts as pleasing him upon the merit of Christ’s blood and righteousness. Yet, he accepts our works so thoroughly that they shall follow us to glory (Rev. 14:13).

Don Fortner