Pleasing God: Pt. 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. Well, each weekday morning this week, we’re talking about pleasing God in our lives.

You know, we’re so focused on our experience now and how good things are for us now or hard things are for us now that we often miss one of the great focuses in the Bible, which is that we’re only here temporarily, right? We’re going to be with God, and this life on this earth is going to end one of these days, and what happens forever in our life with God is so much more important than what happens in this temporary life here on Earth.

The apostle Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 in the New Testament of the Bible. And he says, right now, we’re at home in our bodies, but we’re away from the Lord in the sense that we’re going to be with him in heaven. He says, I would rather be away from the body and be at home with the Lord.

And listen to what he says starting in verse 6. He says, so we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and be at home with the Lord. Then listen to what he says in verse 9.

So whether we are at home or away, that is whether we’re already in heaven or we’re away from heaven, here now in our bodies in this life, wherever we are, we make it our aim to please Him.

Whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please God.

This is so much a reflection of Jesus’ own attitude while he was living here on Earth. In John chapter 8, verse 29, Jesus says, and he who sent me, talking about God the Father, He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. Listen. For I always do the things that are pleasing to him. Let me read that again.

Jesus said, He who sent me the Father is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.

Just zero in on that word always.

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Oh man, there’s such a big difference in our lives between saying, I really want to please God in my relationship with my church, and I want to please God in my daily time with God, setting aside time to read the Bible and listen to Him. And I really want to please God in my prayer life.

I want to pray according to the will of God, so that I start seeing my prayers answered, right? That’s great. That’s a big step forward for most of us. But there’s a big difference between that and this word always, right?

Because always means saying I want to please God always in every action in my life, not just my religious actions, every action. Every choice, every conversation, I want to please God in my work. I want to please God when I’m traveling. I want to please God when I’m at the shopping center. When I’m at the beach, when I’m with my Christian friends, when I’m with my secular friends.

Pleasing God, you know, if pleasing God becomes your first priority and your boss asks you to lie to a client to cover up a mistake, what will you do?

I mean, that’s not easy, right? You haven’t got a lot of time to think about what you’re going to do in that situation. But if you’ve already decided pleasing God is my first priority, what will you do? It doesn’t just mean you’ll dig your heels in and just say, no, I’m not going to do that, but to suggest, what if we said and then present a scenario, but not to lie, because you know, that’s not pleasing to God.

Well, putting God first is not guaranteed to be easy, but it is guaranteed to be rewarding in your life.

I am John North.

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