The Good Pleasure of God

“For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of HIS GOOD PLEASURE!”  Phil. 2:13

Growing up, and in all my days, I’ve hung my “hat” on this Scripture.  By being born of God’s Spirit, I knew I wanted to do “good!”  But the performing of it was NOT always coming out of me.  Sometimes others never saw that “not so good,” and then other times, they did – and that was never fun!  J

Well this is true of EVERY person on this planet.  If it were not so, God would have never sent His Son to die for the unjust, the ungodly NOR need to place the Gift of His Son in the human heart through His Spirit for life eternal and for fruit – ALL by His grace through faith.

The problem I have seen though is that AFTER one has received the precious Gift of God (and free!), there has been generation after generation of the mindset where God is displeased with us – that it is some great chore for Him to work now in us “trying” (though God is never trying) to get us to do right, be right, act right – and the like.

And all the while He is doing it, He is puffing and breathing out exasperations, perhaps distant in His demeanor, just waiting around until we get our act together.  All this ends up producing in one who is really genuinely, precious to Him, is condemnation, shame, guilt, burdens, and a heavy, heavy yoke.  It’s like dragging around a ball and chain on your ankle ALL your life, while you are outwardly “trying” to mimic” what you think He wants.

Yet none of this is true or His way – nor the Gospel of Grace – nor God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in us – nor of the extravagant life and power of His love and Spirit’s presence inside our hearts.

Here is what IS True:

With every stripe Jesus Christ bore in His body on His cross, it was for our peace with God.  It was so the life of God would and could come into our spirits/hearts that we might be raised from the deadness of sin and death.

It was all so God could indeed now give us the Gift of His Son, making us sons and daughters of the Living God.  And now, yes He is working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. 

BUT it is His PLEASURE to work out His good in us!  Really?

It is His pleasure to change our minds – to show us Jesus Christ – to be able to “hear” the Word of God in Truth, in God’s context, not man’s!

It is God’s pleasure to open our hearts and mind to understand the depths of what He accomplished in His Son’s death and resurrection!

It is God’s pleasure to show us we are indeed, united to Him now by ONE SPIRIT of LIFE through faith in His Son.  Only through faith in this living Christ within our hearts do we truly triumph!

And the good pleasure of God goes on and on and on and on and on and on as His dearly beloved children.

There are LOTS of problems on planet earth – even among God’s dearly beloved children.  However, these are the lies sown by Satan himself.  Yet they are CURED by one turning the eye and ear of the heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is Head of His body and Church.  He brings light and glory to our hearts in all things.

This is all God’s Good Pleasure.

We are God’s good pleasure!

And when God’s Spirit shows our hearts this living Christ – tears WILL flow.  These tears come from the rivers of living waters of His Spirit that He placed in us when we believed His Son and the message of the Gospel of Grace.

Bask in His good pleasure today,

Sue Gaither