Pleasure Cruise

"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."

Now I know we like to please man. And we all do it. When we avoid calling someone out, we do not speak truth in love, we stay silent in fear of confrontation or what they'll think. But this isn't about that.
How do we please God? Think on that for a moment. What comes to mind? What do we have to do to please God? We went over this tonight, and it led to an interesting thought.
God reveals His will to us in His Word. We are told to "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." -Micah 6:8, "Love the Lord your God with all your strength and all your heart and all your mind," and "Love thy neighbor as yourself." -Matthew 22: 37-39. But of course, though these are the things we think of, how we might obey, what we might do that God will be pleased with us, we may not think about John 6:28-29 which says "Then (the disciples) said to (Jesus) 'What must we do to be doing the works of God?' Jesus answered them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom He has sent."
We were talking about grace, and being cloaked in righteousness. And when this question, of what pleases God was asked, another guy answered, saying that because of grace, God sees us who have accepted Christ as perfect. Which sparked a thought. I will tell you my thought process:
God tells us His will for us in scripture. He has commands which He has given us. And so obedience is important and good, but it can so easily become corrupted by our selfish desires. And selfishness is not pleasing to God. And then I think of this verse where after Jesus was baptized, "A voice from Heaven said 'this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased," -Matthew 3:17, and so we know that God is pleased with His son, Jesus. And we see in Romans 3:21-25 "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."
We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, because of His grace. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, with whom God is well pleased! So then, when we lean fully on God, embrace His grace and trust fully and wholly in it, when we sacrifice any claim to righteousness we think we have on our own, cling to grace and clothe ourselves in the righteousness of Christ, then the Lord can look upon and and be well pleased! And it is nothing of ourselves, it is all God's love and grace, and Christ's sacrifice and grace. And we need to thank God for that every day.
Speaking of that, I think we really don't appreciate the magnitude of grace. Common grace, the fact that we are allowed to live at all, the beauty of creation, all of it is a gift of God's grace and a testament to His love for us. Breathe it in deep. It is amazing. I say this because a few hours ago Adam and I were on top of the parking ramp so he could take pictures for a class. While we were up there I looked into the sky and muttered a prayer simply asking to see a shooting star. Not two minutes later, there it went, splitting the night sky with light. And it was amazing. Grace: A favor rendered by one who need not do so. A simple gift, but so amazing. Praise God!