How Do I Please God?

And, why should I want to?

God cannot remain in relationship with a will which is against His own. Our will is the absolute center of who we are, and it is the same for God. There is no close relationship when wills are at cross-purposes. We actualize our love for and devotion to God by zealously (and eventually joyfully) yielding to the frustration of our immediate – and even our seemingly deep and essential – desires. We yield to what we know of His will: not just His “will for my life,” but His will for the World. And this has consequences and entailments for our own place in the world, as we live our lives in Him.

If we can’t tolerate the idea that God may intend that the loudest and most persistent desires of our hearts not be fulfilled in this present darkness, then we are in danger of remaining at best mere spectators and admirers of true disciples, and, at worst, embittered and damned.

Remember the young rich man who could not let go of his wealth to gain the Kingdom in Jesus’ very real offer of discipleship:

Now as Jesus was starting out on his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” The man said to him, “Teacher, I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws since my youth.” As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him and said, “You lack one thing. Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But at this statement, the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.¹

What do we do with this requirement? Here was a devoted follower, if not yet a disciple. Was the demand to divest oneself of one’s possessions Jesus’ way of redistributing wealth? If not, then why set the cost of being a disciple of Jesus so high? Let’s look at another event involving a rich man and Jesus to see if we can gain insight.

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector² and was rich. He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”³

Why the joy and voluntarily repentant largesse in the latter case, and why the shock and sorrow in the former? We can be sure of one thing, it ain’t about money. “Yeah, tell that to the first guy,” you might say. And you would be right to so object. God wants our heart’s devotion. God knows that “salvation” can only “come to our household” when our very essence — our will — reverses polarity from egocentric self orientation, to devotion to and reliance upon Him. So, if money is what you love and rely on for self-actualization, then God will require it of you, in some way or another. But it doesn’t have to be an occasion for trauma. Zacchaeus gave up his treasure with joy, because he had found an infinitely more valuable one, and he knew he couldn’t keep both.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field, that a man found and then re-buried, and in his joy he goes and sells everything that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. And when he found one very valuable pearl, he went and sold everything that he possessed and purchased it.⁴

Jesus hammered this point home to his students with back-to-back analogies, because He wanted them to understand the paradoxical cost of discipleship. It costs everything one has, but the treasure gained makes one “rich beyond the dreams of avarice”⁵ in the only way that really, eternally matters: complete and overflowing fulfillment of the heart, forever.

1. Mark 10:17-22.

2. He was a Jew employed by Israel’s Roman occupiers to collect exorbitant taxes from fellow Jews. Tax collectors were allowed by Rome to add arbitrary amounts to the prescribed taxes, which they could keep as their profits. Needless to say, they usually were wealthy social pariahs.

3. Luke 19:1-9

4. Matthew 13:44-46

5. per Bones