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Something came up recently, and these words, “I want to do things right before the Lord,” sparked these thoughts:
Those words sound like if we please the Lord, things will go well for us. While that is true, it could also be false, depending on the understanding and motive. We aren’t here to be sycophants or pleasers. We are so prone to please, this being a very selfish thing indeed. Primarily, we seek to please people, so we’ll be accepted by them or benefitted somehow.
We then presume to do the same with God, like Cain did. He was a pleaser! And where did it get him? Abel didn’t bring a sacrifice to please God. He brought it because he knew it was right. Had his sacrifice been rejected, he wouldn’t have felt badly, as did Cain. He would have sought for the right way (of course, the reason his sacrifice was accepted was because his heart was right, and therefore he could not but be accepted). However, Cain was offended: “Well, if that’s the thanks I get, phooey on God! I won’t believe in Him anymore!” We have heard that many times.
We are called to do right because it is right, whether pleasing to anyone or not. We are here to choose the successful and true right, the one and only kind of right there is, and not what we ignorantly and foolishly imagine and choose to be right, in that it is selfishly advantageous. Choosing right, things will go well for us. Choosing to please, we destroy those we pretend to please (not that we can destroy God, of course, but we grieve Him), and we destroy ourselves.
God isn’t asking us to please Him. Where in the Bible does one find God wanting us to please Him? It isn’t there! Did you know? He isn’t primarily interested in His own welfare and feelings. He wants to see things go well for us, and He has shown, and is showing, us how that can and must be because He cares for us.
God is called “Love” because He cares about us over Himself. That is the nature of true love. When we do right and things go well for us, then He’ll be pleased. He’ll be satisfied because we are fulfilled and satisfied in reality, by His satisfaction and not by the destructive, blind-alley kind of satisfaction that comes out of self-serving lack of knowledge and understanding.
Victor Hafichuk
– April 17, 2011
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All that’s falling on our nations now is because of sin and unbelief, iniquity and violence everywhere. We’ve thrown God out, even in His own Name (adding sin to sin), and now He’s done with our iniquity, presumption, stubbornness, arrogance, self-importance, and rebellion. He’s finished winking. The freedoms we’ve enjoyed as nations, particularly in the West and maybe most particularly in North America, are history.
Why did not President Obama tell the people that without the Son, we can do nothing? Does he know that the electorate does not want to hear that? Does he realize that the people would rather have a hero than a Savior? Does he realize that they would sooner identify with him than with Jesus Christ? Or is it true that President Obama is a Muslim, and as such, does not believe that God has a Son?
Anna Kopelson contacts us regarding Victor's statement “Come, submit to me, follow me and you will know that I speak the truth (by the grace of God because I am a mere man saved from sin myself), because you will find rest, peace, purpose, prosperity.”