How does a Christian know that he or she is pleasing to God?
The Christian must deal with sin. We have many preconceived ideas about what pleases God and those things we define as sins. If we use only our preconceived concepts to guide us, we will fail. Why? Because man is fallen and does not instinctively or intuitively know right from wrong.
How then can we know God's will, or discover what God considers as sin?
The Psalmist leads us toward the answer:
Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.
Psalms 119:11
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
Psalms 1:1-3
The Word of God is inextricably linked to knowing what pleases God and in correctly identifying sin. We cannot know the will of God apart from a mastery of God's Word. We are clueless when it comes to identifying sins unless we have God's Word hidden in our hearts.
The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.
Psalms 119:130
Without the light of God's Word to guide us, we can only make feeble attempts to please God, using past experiences and preconditioning to guide us. We are completely unenlightened in our attempts to do God's will. We have no light to shine on the sins in our lives and those of the world.
For the man or woman who diligently seeks God and meditates on, and studies His Word, the light will begin to shine on their hearts and minds. New revelations will flow into us which will move us to bow before our holy God and confess our sins to Him.
We are called to seek God diligently and dig deep into His Word! When we do, we will be equipped for God to flow through us and to be used by Him to minister to a lost and dying world.
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