Easy to Please

One of the reasons we have a confession of sin at the beginning of the service every week is to underline the fact that God is easy to please even though He is hard to satisfy. There really is a welcome sign out front of every true Christian worship service. And in the Call to Worship, everyone is truly invited to come. All who want to come into the presence of God, are most welcome in the presence of God.

But God really is holy, holy, holy, and sin cannot come into His presence. I don’t mean this like you’re trying to bring a casserole into God’s house that He doesn’t prefer. Our sin is not merely something that He doesn’t like. No, our sin is literally something that cannot exist in His presence. It will not go in. 

Imagine the way magnets can attract on one side but completely repel on the other. The holiness of God and sin are the two largest magnets in the universe, utterly repelling one another. And no manner of pushing can make them come together. When sin is clinging to you, or better, when you are clinging to your sin, you cannot come in to God’s presence.

But the way in is glorious: simply let it go. Put it down. Confess it. That’s what the confession of sin is. It means letting go of your sin. Let go of your bad attitude. Let go of your complaining spirit, your critical spirit. Let go of your resentment, your bitterness against your wife, your husband, your mom, your dad. Put it down now. Let your lust and envy go now. Let’s go into the presence of God. And you can’t come into God’s presence while holding on to any of it. 

God isn’t keeping you out. Only sin keeps us out. But the promise is glorious: if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God really is easy to please. 

But maybe you say that you really do want to let go of your sin, but you just don’t know how, or maybe you’ve tried, but it just keeps sticking to you. Then you can still come, but you have to confess that. Confess that you want to let go of your sin, but you don’t want to enough, you haven’t truly been able to. God will forgive that sin too, and He will set you completely free. 

Photo by Natasha Ivanchikhina on Unsplash