We serve a God who is easily pleased and not easily satisfied. We see this in the creation of the world. God created light and darkness, and God saw that it was good. God had barely created anything, and He was pleased with it. But God wasn’t satisfied. God gathered the waters together and formed the dry land, and God saw that it was good. God was pleased with it, but God wasn’t done. Even after the Fall, when sin had entered the world, God was easily pleased by the faith of Abraham, but God wasn’t satisfied. God was pleased with the sacrifices of Israel, but He wasn’t satisfied. Even when Jesus came and was baptized, God said this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased – before Jesus had hardly begun His ministry.
But now the most wonderful thing has happened, Jesus accomplished the complete forgiveness of our sins, the redemption of the world, and He ascended into Heaven and sat down at the Father’s right hand. And this is the glory: God the Father is not only pleased with Jesus His Son, but God the Father is completely satisfied in Jesus.
And this is really good news. God is still easily pleased with us, even though we are not yet what He has in mind for us. But He is already completely satisfied in Jesus, and so the end result is completely secure. It’s accomplished. It’s finished. The good work that God has begun in all who trust in Christ will be completed. And this is the salvation that we work out. It’s God’s easy pleasure in us and His complete satisfaction in His Son.
And so we are called to imitate this. We should be easily pleased and not easily satisfied. This means we should be easily pleased with the work of God in our lives, and hungry for more, easily pleased with the faltering steps of our children, and eager for Christ to be more fully formed in them. We should be easily thankful, easily joyful, easily praising God for His goodness and grace, and always hungry for more.
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