“Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).
PASSIONATE DESIRE IS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE, BUT EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN DESIRE IS THE OBJECT OF OUR DESIRE. Some things are more worthy to be desired than others, and so we need to be careful in our choice of what we desire. And when it comes to our ultimate desire, we should be the most careful of all.
If we are Christians, what should be the one thing we want more than anything else? Well, think of it this way: we are privileged to be the servants of God — and should a servant want anything more than to please his master? In terms of earthly servitude, a servant might not be highly motivated to please his master, but if God is the Master, shouldn’t it give us great delight to please Him? Isn’t that the highest goal we could ever reach forward to?
Too often, we give greater priority to pleasing other people, and if we think of pleasing God at all it is only after we’ve pleased everybody else. But we’ve been given some very plain warnings about that kind of thing (Matthew 23:1-7; John 12:42,43; Galatians 1:10). When a choice has to be made, if we would rather please other people than please God, we’re unfit to be His servants.
But another problem we have is thinking that pleasing God constitutes some special group of actions. We divide life into “religious” and “secular” departments and suppose that God is only pleased when we are operating in the “religious” realm. But William Tyndale made a good point when he said, “There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all is one.” Those who please God are those who do so in every area of their lives; whatever they do, they want to do it in a manner that would please Him.
Paul wrote, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17). If we fail to see the importance of doing that, it’s probably a failure of perspective on our part. What we desire is often governed by what’s in front of us at the moment. What we need to do is back up and look at the bigger view.
“If we fully comprehended the brevity of life, our greatest desire would be to please God and to serve one another” (James C. Dobson).
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
