Pleasing God

Chaplain Ron Suarez, CTCA/Southwestern Regional Medical Center

And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Heb. 11:6

Several years ago, my wife introduced me to a book written by Dr. Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. In his book, Dr. Chapman outlines the idea that our spouses will only feel loved when we give them the things that make them feel loved. Much of what he said was common sense stuff, such as giving your wife a baseball bat as an anniversary gift is probably not a good way to say “I love you.”

The point here is that to acknowledge our spouses in a meaningful way, we have to care enough to know what “makes them tick,” and then care enough to provide them with what makes them feel loved. In many ways, marriage mirrors our relationship with God.

First, married couples have to acknowledge each other as spouses, as being a couple. Often times, when I meet someone wearing a wedding ring, I’ll ask the name of his or her spouse. Being married and wearing a wedding ring means acknowledging someone as your spouse. So you wouldn’t feel very loved if your spouse told me that he or she wasn’t your husband or wife.

Can you imagine it – a couple goes to a party, the husband introduces the woman with him as his wife, and then the wife vehemently denies she has any relationship with him. There would be something really wrong with the husband if he didn’t get mad at her. She knows he’s her husband. She has no excuse for denying he’s her husband. How could she deny such an obvious fact? I mean, she was there when she married him. Right?

for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists
Like marriage, you first have to acknowledge God in order have a relationship with him. It would be foolish to say I trust in someone whose existence I deny. Also, there’s no excuse for not acknowledging He is our God. When we look at the heavens, we should be able to declare with the Psalmist that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” All of creation screams God’s lovingkindness in the care He took with His creation. Therefore, God has every right, as Creator and God, to be angry with those who reject a relationship with Him.

Once more, it’s not good enough for your spouse to say “I’m married.” You want him or her to acknowledge you as their spouse. In the same way, it’s not enough to say “there is a God” or acknowledge “any ‘ol god” as your god. The God of the Bible declares that we have to acknowledge Him as the exclusive God of the universe. Anything else will not do and is, in fact, idolatry.

Secondly, it would be rather ridiculous to tell everyone you’re engaged to be married but not be able to them about your spouse-to-be. You can’t love someone you don’t know. We move beyond a mere physical attraction with someone when we get to know the person and begin to appreciate that person for who he or she is. The more things we hold in common, the more we love someone on an emotional basis. That’s why we love them.

Similarly, we have to know who God is … His ways, His character, His likes and dislikes, if we are to say that we know and love Him. Consequently, we strive to live a life which is always seeking to know better the one we love. This task is too important to leave up to our imagination, guesswork, or second-hand information. The only sure and safe way we may undergo this task is through studying and observing the person we love. We can only get to know who God is by reading the objective facts about Him in the Bible, by communing with Him in prayer, and fellowshipping with His saints, the church.

Lastly, you have to give your spouse the things he or she likes in order to show love. That was the point of The Five Love Languages. Your spouse knows you love him or her and care about their feelings, when you give them the thing they’ve been telling you they want. Conversely, giving your wife a shotgun for an anniversary present won’t make her feel appreciated and could be potentially dangerous, especially if it’s what you wanted, not what she wanted. She will probably feel hurt and angry that you didn’t care enough about her feelings to find out what she likes. Can you imagine a husband giving his wife a pie covered with mud and then getting mad when she isn’t thrilled at receiving the gift? It may be her favorite pie, but it’s ruined by the mud.

This principal of marriage also applies to our relationship with God. How can I say I know and love Him if I keep giving God things He doesn’t want? We give God gifts He doesn’t want or gifts that are ruined when we expect that our good deeds alone please Him. Though God wants us to do good things, the best things we can offer Him are made unacceptable and ruined by our sin. God requires that our lives and our praises be perfect without any mixture of sin. All the things you do for God are useless if they’re not perfect gifts. Ultimately, giving God our good works is like offering your spouse their favorite pie topped off with mud.

The only gifts God desires, that don’t offend Him, are works mixed with faith. God values the sacrifice of his Son’s death above anything we could give Him. Trusting in the good things we do to save us is telling God that His Son and His Son’s death aren’t important to us. We display our faith and love for God by valuing Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice as the only means by which we can be saved. Once we’ve done this, we have faith that Jesus’ perfect works will be substituted for our works ruined by sin. So a faith trusting in Christ’s substitutionary work is the only gift that is pleasing to Him.