He is Pleased!

Paul tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God.

Well the negative take on this is that it is possible to displease God. But the upside is not even that we could please Him..but that he could be possibly pleased with us! He really takes pleasure in us..He is literally obsessed with us. Remember the Jesus parable of the woman sweeping her house endlessly to find her lost coin; or the crazy shepard leaving 99 sheep alone to find one??
Jesus used these parables to illustrate His fathers illogical passion for His creatures. And when the Father finds us..and we dare to trust him..he is pleased!

But lets get back to him being pleased. I don't know the greek on this word pleased..but I know that the scriptures tell us He delights in us. Isn't that delicious? We have a creator who is passionate for our well being and derives pleasure and satisfaction from relating to us. He is not an old curmudgeon with whom we have to cajole and manuever and bargain for his favor. When this Father/Grandfather comes to our house at Thanksgiving, He enters and we bound into His lap with gales of laughter.

If you want to piss Jesus off, suggest to him that his Father is a hard man and a miser, or that we must placate Him with our good behavior. It takes a lot to get Jesus mad but that will do it!

This upsets Jesus because it is a character assasination of the one who has filled our universe with air and stars and birds and wheat and love and music in staggering amounts.

When we treat Him (God) as a demanding despot, whom we must trick into accepting us through our religiuous efforts, we miss The Thanksgiving turkey dinner completely.

We please Him when we bound into his lap without fear, even though we have no right to be there. We know we are cowards and liars (even little ones) and scaredy cats and cheaters and lazy yada yada. But we bound into His lap because we believe in His eternal love for us more than our unworthiness..and this my friend pleases Him.



Remember what the great Apostle of love, John says? He who fears is not perfected in love; because fear has to do with punishment. John expresses it in an even more radical way: God IS Love.



Paul in Hebrews gives us a different set of images to show us what faith looks like: He tells us to enter the throne room boldly (gulp!). I think this suggests this faith stuff is not that easy.

Imagine a homeless person with rags (us) boldly entering the kings throne room and getting into His lap.



Faith takes guts and audacity and shamelessness. It really is more difficult than works..where we think if we press certain levers (obedience, prayer, etc) God on a string will dance our dance.



No we boldly throw ourselves fearlessly into His mercifull lap. Talk about bungee jumping from the High bridge!



So I dare you..enter the room of grace boldly. Jesus has gone before us and made things right. The father is dying (literally) to see you.