TO PLEASE THE LORD - THE HIGHEST AIM

TO PLEASE THE LORD - THE HIGHEST AIM

To do the things that please Him is the highest and happiest aim and state. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, proved the blessedness of it. Before death had made, as it were, a complete sweep, the seventh is translated,

^[p. 406] that he should not see death, and “before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Hebrews 11: 5). He “walked with God” (Genesis 5: 24); “he pleased God”. This is the highest place for man on earth; the place our blessed Lord - who could say, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8: 29), the Father - so fully filled; and it is not only the highest, but the happiest.

In the first place, if I please Him, I answer to His mind in creating me and setting me on the earth; what can be morally higher than to fulfil one’s mission on earth, “unto all well-pleasing”? What more can His greatest work do, what less ought it to do, than to answer to the end for which the Creator had made it? One will readily see that there can be no higher place, nor any higher aim, than whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to him, for that is the meaning of the word rendered “accepted” (2 Corinthians 5: 9). This being admitted, and it cannot be denied, the next point is, how this aim, which is the highest, is also the happiest. It is happiest because it occupies us with our true object, and this of itself must divert us from thinking of ourselves, which is always the source of vexation and sadness; and as it is not to get something from our object, but to answer to His pleasure, we are waiting on Him and not expecting something for ourselves. If I expect, I am thinking of getting, and myself comes in, in the inquiry whether I have received or not; and if I do not feel that I have received, I get disquieted and dissatisfied. But if I am so occupied with Christ that I am thinking of pleasing Him in everything I do, and referring each and all to Him, I am waiting on Him to know His pleasure. It is not what I would like, but what He likes. It is not to get, but to please Him; this occupies you with the mind of Christ; and like flowers to the sun, you receive, while you turn to Him, the colours and the fragrance that He desires.

If I walk with a person, I must study to please him, if I care that we should walk together. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3: 3). And so with the Lord. As I make Him my object, and study to please Him, I must, necessarily, in habit and taste, be more like Him. Mary pleased Jesus, and was she not pleased herself? The more I please Him, the more I am pleased. I make Him my object, and study Him, not the effects of His gifts on me. I like His gifts because they are a pleasure to Him. I see the word, the attitude, the service that will please Him. I consider not for myself. My alabaster box goes, though it will be covered up in a tomb. Nothing is a sacrifice if I know that it will please Him; but this I cannot know but as I wait on Him; not for my own benefit, but that I may fulfil, in every detail, what will call forth His delight. He ever delights in us, but He does not express it but as we are where and how He would have us.

The Lord compares Himself to one who had planted a vineyard, and when He had done everything for it, it brought forth wild grapes. As He says, “What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5: 4). That is, it brought forth nothing to please Him. He looked for the ripe grapes. “These three years I come seeking fruit ... and find none” (Luke 13: 7). He seeks the expression of His own grace in us, and if we are thinking of growing grapes for Him - of pleasing Him - He is intensely our object, and we testify of our delight in Him by doing His pleasure, while at the same time our own hearts are gladdened as we answer to His mind. What a cheer to be to the One I love, what that One desires; it is the greatest delight to love. He is that to us, and He desires that we should be so to Him; and our love is never satisfied until we are so to Him. Hence He says with reference to fruit, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15: 10, 11); and also, “that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full”. Both love and joy are known to the one who is pleasing Him.

If I am seeking my own happiness, or to be pleased with myself, I am not occupied with pleasing Him. The vine appropriates soil and climate to produce the ripe grapes. Thus every energy is devoted to this end. If you are thinking of pleasing any one, you are diverted from yourself; and not this only, you are interested in the one you are occupied with; and according as you love such an one, you feel your love rewarded and strengthened, because it is active, and has been engaged with that which gratifies it.