What’s His Pleasure

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort — for the sake of his good pleasure — is God.

Philippians 2:13 (emphasis added)

What is the pleasure of Adonai? “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, acknowledging his name. And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God is pleased with such sacrifices” (Hebrews 13:15–16). Obedience is better than adherence to a bunch of rules (1 Samuel 15:22) because heart matters more than empty action. How do we GET heart? How do we make sure that we are dealing from and with our heart? By remembering the basic most simple thing about our relationship with Adonai. “Now without faith it is impossible to please him, for the one who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). It is ALL about TRUST.

Adonai loves it when we trust Him. Without love we can’t trust. HIS love. He loves us so that we are able to love (1 John 4:19). He gives us the Grace to accept it. He gives us the Grace to receive from Him. He gives us HIS trust (Mark 11:22–23). He gives us the ability to use it. To embrace it. To live and move and BE all within the loving hug of His arms of trust. THAT is what His good pleasure is. The trust His love inspires in us through our love for Him. Isn’t that a beautiful thought? And He expresses it so lovingly throughout scripture. From Genesis to Revelation we find it is a thread connecting every dot, dash, line, and tittle.

Before anything was anything, He found you. Yes, you. He found you and was willing to sell everything He owned to get you. ““The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid. Then because of joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field” (Matthew 13:44). He purchased the whole earth (Psalm 24:1) just to have the dirt you were formed of (Genesis 1:26). That is how precious you were. That is how much pleasure you are able to give Him. You are able to walk in the truth that it was worth it to Him to redeem you.

Before anything was anything, He found you. Yes, you. You were an object of such precious and spectacular value that He was unable to let you alone. He could not stop until He had made sure that He had made a way. That He had performed the action that guaranteed your purchase. He paid that very high price so that you could be His (Matthew 13:45). Before He created Creation He made sure to make it a truth we could count on (Revelation 13:8). He made sure to prepare the trust we would need (Romans 12:3). Each of us have the same amount. There is enough to go around. No one has more. No one has less. We are ALL able to trust Him.

How could we trust Him if He was unjust (Deuteronomy 32:4)? How could we trust Him if He lied (Hebrews 6:18)? How could we trust Him if He gave us bad things (Matthew 7:9–11)? The answer is that we could not. But only GOOD things come from Adonai (James 1:17). He is our GOOD Father (Isaiah 64:7). He is our GOOD Shepherd (John 10:11–15). He is faithful to us. He has been faithful to us since before WE were even a thing. “So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,” (Deuteronomy 7:9). “O Lord, your loyal love reaches to the sky, your faithfulness to the clouds” (Psalm 36:5).

Why do we think this kind of God would want us sick? Or diseased? Or depressed? Or struggling to make ends meet? Or confused when we read His Word? Or be anything but what Jesus was here on earth? Jesus didn’t walk in the fullness of who He is until His baptism. That is when the Holy Spirit descended on Him and He got the power to perform the instructions the Father put in His heart. He didn’t HAVE the ability. The HOLY SPIRIT had the ability. Still does. That’s why WE need Him (Luke 24:49). In that Spirit, which is the Spirit of Messiah (Romans 8:11), we have our being (Acts 17:28). That isn’t a license to try and make Adonai do things. It is a call to train your head and heart to match your spirit. But HE is the only one who can do it. Not OUR efforts, but HIS in us (2 Corinthians 13:5).

“God wanted to make known to them the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). It wouldn’t be much of a hope if we had to wallow in the same places as those who DIDN’T have Messiah Jesus in their hearts. That would not be that good of news. It would not inspire trust. What DOES inspire trust is Adonai doing it all through us, for us. So that we are free to love and praise and love in our obedience to the good things He does. Adonai finds no pleasure in sin, the curse, or the things that are birthed from them (Ezekiel 33:11). His pleasure is trust born of His love. Trust born of our love. Full of goodness, and mercy, and wholeness, and Him. Nothing else gives Him pleasure like the trust of one who loves Him. One of the ways we know our love is true, is the goodness from which it comes. His goodness. In which there is NO shadow of ANY kind (James 1:17–18).

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 110:4

“The Lord makes this promise on oath and will not revoke it: “You are an eternal priest after the pattern of Melchizedek.”” A priest after the order of Melchizedek. That is the kind of priest Messiah would be. Not one of the Levitical line. But one established BEFORE the giving of the Law and the foundation of the Levitical line. Melchizedek was a priest in Abraham’s time (Genesis 14:18). Levi (and thus the Levitical line) were still in Abraham’s loins as descendants of the son he had not had yet (Issac). Therefore the Melchizedek priesthood is a superior line, not relying upon the Law for its foundation. David looked forward to its completion in Messiah (Psalm 110:4). Messiah would be the fulfilment of the Melchizedek line. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, sure and steadfast, which reaches inside behind the curtain, where Jesus our forerunner entered on our behalf, since he became a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19–20). In Jesus, this line IS complete. “During his earthly life Christ offered both requests and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his devotion. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered. And by being perfected in this way, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, and he was designated by God as high priest in the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:7–9). Jesus IS the Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

- Matthew 16:16b