Pleased part 5
God is pleased WITH us when things go well FOR us. When we experience the gift that we've been given, which is the eternal, abundant, everlasting, Resurrection Life of love. Which we do by receiving and releasing that love that He first loved us with. But God is well pleased IN us because He is our heavenly Father and we are His beloved Son. Well pleased. Not because of what we do, but because of who we are. And who He is. I started this Rant series with the truth that God is a happy God because He got what He wanted. All throughout the Old Testament He says over and over that He wanted to be our God and He wanted us to be His people. And then, on the cross, that's exactly what happened. God moved into the neighborhood. The carpenter Jesus built Himself a house to live in. And that house is you. You are the face of the invisible God. You are how the God who is love manifests Himself. He loves you, and then that love fills you to overflowing and comes out through you. Receiving and releasing. Receiving BY releasing. That's how we live Jesus' life--we let HIM live His own life in us, and through us, and as us. We let Him love the hell out of us, and then we love the hell out of each other. We, if I can say it this way, be about our Father's business. But remember now, before Paul became Saul he THOUGHT he was about God's business when he was persecuting followers of the Way. He was "pro-God" but anti-Christ. And those two don't go together. They can't. Jesus talked all the time about how if you rejected the Father you rejected the One whom He sent. And vice versa. Its like Logan and me. Father and Son. Package deal. You can't have one without the other. Jesus even went so far as to say that He and the Father are One. He is me. Jesus is my true identity. When God looks at Jesus, He sees me. And when He looks at me, He sees Jesus. And, like a proud Papa, He is well pleased in what He sees. Remember even in the garden of Eden God created something and said it was good. Then He created us and said it was VERY good. He has a special place in His heart for man. For His most precious creation. For us. Because God is love, and He wanted a way to express Himself. To express that love. He wanted someone... to love. So, through Jesus, He made us. By love, through love, and for love. And He didn't make an mistakes. It doesn't matter how you got here, it only matter that you ARE here. God has always been more interested in availability than ability. He can equip and empower you (and, in truth He HAS equipped and empowered you) to do what He wants you to do. But, while He might be very persuasive, I don't believe He will FORCE you to do anything. Jonah, and some others, might disagree, but I think at the end of the day they still had some measure of "free will." But I digress. My point is, God wants the best for you. And the best you can HAVE is GIVING what you've got. Giving away the love that's inside of you, and in that way experiencing it. That's when (and how) things go well for us. That's when God, who is already pleased IN us, is also pleased WITH us. When He sees the love inside come out. Because its all about love!