Pleasing to God

...”You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased.”  Luke 3:22

This passage is God speaking from heaven after Jesus had been baptized by John and had received the Holy Spirit.  This was the beginning of Jesus’ three year ministry on earth, a ministry that would shake the foundations of the religious world and forever change our relationship with the Father.  It was also the declaration of war against the father of lies and his minions.  Jesus would spend the next three years reclaiming territory that Satan had occupied, transforming lives that had been damaged and destroyed by the works of the enemy, healing bodies ravaged by oppression, and teaching others how to do the things He was doing.  His birth brought the promise of this upcoming battle but this public blessing, the bestowing of the Spirit  and the confirmation by God that this was indeed His Son marked the beginning of a battle that will only be fully completed when Jesus returns for His bride.

Wait a minute!  God was telling His Son that He was pleased with Him at the beginning of the battle, even before Jesus’ public ministry had started, no one had been saved, no demons cast out, no dead person raised, no blind eyes opened, or deaf ears unstopped.  Jesus had not even taught one lesson, told one parable, called one disciple.  He had no track record of successful healings, resurrections, deliverances, salvations under His belt.  He was just starting out, stepping into His ministry.

So what was God so pleased about?  The words prior to His declaration of pleasure tell us in what He delighted.  God’s delight and pleasure was in the fact that Jesus was His Son.  Notice He didn’t add, “I am pleased with what you’ve done” or “I am pleased with what you are about to do”.  God was pleased with Jesus because He was His Son.  He was pleased because of who Jesus was not with what He was doing or going to do.  Simply being His Son brought Him pleasure, it was not tied to doing.

How many times I have read these words and in my mind I fast forwarded to all the things Jesus was going to do, the lives he would forever touch, the church that would result from His time on earth and I would view these words as pleasure in what Jesus was doing.  Of course God would find pleasure in all those things Jesus was doing.  But today these words went in with no fast forwarding or assumptions of what was pleasing to God only the reality of God’s pleasure in Jesus being His Son.  How many of us in the Western world are driven to do, find our value in what we do, and value others by what they do instead of finding pleasure simply by who someone is?  How many of us have spent our lives doing, to earn love, value, acceptance instead of resting secure in the knowledge that we are a pleasure to God simply because we are His child?  Could it be that easy?  

I hope you will join me in pondering this truth, really taking it into your spirit and being honest about what you find.  Do you believe that God finds pleasure in you because of who you are?  Or do you feel you have to earn love, work for acceptance, strive to be good enough to please Him?  What things are keeping you from knowing that you are a pleasure to God?  Have you experienced the Father heart of God?

Such a simple truth but what a huge difference it makes once it becomes your truth.

Blessings on your journey into higher truth

Lori