Galatians 1:10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

In the opening scripture, it is clear that pleasing man takes you out of being a servant of Christ.

This means that you are a servant to whoever you please.

A servant-master relationship is that of total dependence, and claiming to be a disciple of Christ means pleasing Him in all we do. Do you remember the phrase, ‘good and faithful servant’ in Matthew 25:23? This is what the Lord will say to those who pleased Him in their journey through life on this earth.

Everybody is enslaved to one person or thing no matter how we see it. Many people claim that Christianity and religion generally keep people in bondage but little do they know that whatever you believe in, you are enslaved to. Your belief system would affect your behavior and whoever affects your behavior controls your life. Simple!

They think that because you cannot live anyhow as a Christian, you are missing out and are not living in freedom. By being able to do whatever pleases them, they think that is freedom. No one on earth is free. Even those who think they are free to do anything because they don’t believe in Jesus are enslaved to someone or a spirit they have no idea of.

The major struggle with pleasing God is the factor of unseen versus seen. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In Hebrews 11:6, the Bible says, And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. We know that faith is simply acting on God’s Word. So we can conclude that anyone who acts on God’s Word pleases God.

Because we can see other people that surround us, it is easy to desire their approval and have them like us. Even though we may know based on head knowledge that God is everywhere, it can be difficult to please God once the consciousness of God is absent. Once God fills the mind, we are going to be more conscious of his presence which would consequently affect our actions and the rationale behind our actions.

1 John 2:17 says, “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”  This means our destination in the life after here is dependent on how we pleased God or not. Another version said ‘he who pleases God will live forever.’ So, doing God’s will is equated to pleasing God. Therefore, if it takes faith to please God and the one who does God’s Will also pleases God, we can come to the conclusion that faith equals doing God’s will which leads to pleasing God.

Because we are to be servants of Christ, our actions and decisions must be influenced and led by Him. Looking at Hebrews 11:6 again, we can see that Faith in Him would let you acknowledge Him in all your ways so that your paths can be guided by Him. Our pleasing God does not do much for Him. We end up being beneficiaries at the end of the day.

In pleasing God, I see two elements: The element of motive and that of timing. Pleasing God does not necessarily mean doing a good thing. It’s about doing the right thing, the right way, and at the right time. So you could be doing something that is good but ask yourself, Is this the time to do it? and Am I doing it with the right heart? This is where acknowledging God comes in because He knows what would bring the best results at a particular time.

Romans 8:8 says Those in the flesh cannot please God.  The Christian life without the Holy Spirit cannot be fruitful because there are times that using logic would not deal with some issues. It would only take the helper given to us to guide us into all truth which may not make sense, naturally speaking. As His servants, if our flesh is more active than the Spirit of God in us, He cannot force His will on us. The Spirit of God will just lie dormant and the flesh will control everything. And the flesh, according to scripture, is in opposition to the Spirit, hence not pleasing God.

1 John 3:22 also states that “And whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him.” This means the key to answered prayer lies in doing God’s will.  The problem with humanity is the fact that we choose our own way by neglecting God’s path and when we land into a ditch, we begin to ask questions like If there is God, why is there evil in the world?

If you do not know God’s ways, you can’t even move on to keeping them, so Romans 12:2 talks about the renewal of mind that brings transformation so we can discern what the pleasing and perfect will of God is. This means that what you feed your mind with, also has the tendency to put you either in line with God’s will or outside of God’s will. If we do things with God in mind as Colossians 3:23 says, ” Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” then we take what people would say out of the picture and focus on what God would say about the action we are about to take.

• Life & Work