3rd John 2 Program - God Is Pleased with You!

God Is Pleased With You! 

This week we focus on love. What love is and what love does. God’s Love for us and how to receive that love so it can be a real living experience and not just head knowledge. Yesterday as I focused on Jesus holding me in His arms, it seemed as though I glided through the day and it was magnificent.

Everything seemed easier yesterday and I accomplished far more than I imagined as I went along and just did things peacefully.

Opened to this...

Matthew 12:18

“Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!

In continuing with what I experienced yesterday, I believe God is showing me that He is pleased with me. Something I have needed to see for a very long time. I have thought for too long that I have not pleased God because of all my sins and mistakes. I have thought Him to be very displeased with me. This has caused me a lot of damage in my emotions and thinking.

It has caused me to go further away from Him rather than drawing closer in a union of deep love and affection.

Yesterday I read the verses about God loving me and being pleased with me; His acceptance and His approval. Then I recorded it so I could hear it again as if He was talking out loud to me.

It was also about His comfort. As I focused on these verses about God’s love, approval and comfort, I was able to go through my day with a clearer head and a peaceful heart. ♥️

I could feel the mighty power of Holy Spirit on me throughout the day as I pictured Jesus hugging me. Instead of allowing myself to toil over past mistakes, I focused on the wonderful love and approval of God toward me. My thinking was transformed.

In this verse the Father is showing us that Jesus is His beloved Servant. That makes us His beloved servants. He said His soul is well pleased with Jesus. That means that He is well pleased with us.

Look at this…

By this I know that You are well pleased with me, because my enemy does not triumph over me. Psalm 41:11

When we see victory playing out in our lives, we see that God is pleased with us, for it is Him that causes that to play out.

In the following verse, we see that God was immediately making a bold statement that He was and is pleased with Jesus.

And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17

When I listened to a well-known speaker and teacher of the word of God last night, I heard him tell how he wanted Holy Spirit to enjoy Him. He wants the Lord to enjoy him. I found that to be profound. In a way to me, this sounds like wanting God to be pleased. We know from His word that God is pleased with us because He is pleased with Jesus, and we are in Jesus as His born-again children. That’ is worth shouting about!

I am learning that we need to really meditate on the verses of scripture that pinpoint the very issues that we have struggled with the most. Too often in the past I have just breezed over these things. I never gave it enough time and attention to get it deeply rooted and grounded down into the depth of my heart. (Soul)

Now in this season of my life, as I seek to be used of the Lord to bring His love and compassion to others, I must first have it for myself. Otherwise, I cannot give anything to others if I have nothing in me to give.

I won’t have it in me if I don’t allow the Lord to make a deep deposit of His love and approval in my soul. It has to be a real experience for me so I can really display this to others. Talk is cheap – but experience changes everything.

We can talk about how great Disney World is and what a great place it is to go, but if we have never been there and experienced it, then we are simply speaking from some facts we have heard. We don’t really know how great it is to go there and ride the rides, to feel the emotions of being there.

We don’t know the joy of seeing little kids around us shout with glee at all the darling characters. We don’t know what the food tastes like unless we ate it ourselves. We don’t know the beauty of the evening fireworks display unless our own eyes have beheld it.

In the same way, so it is with the love and approval of God. If we never take the time to allow it to get in us so we can feel and experience it for ourselves, then how can we ever really tell others about it.

If I don’t go there myself, I have business preaching to you about the love and approval of God. I have to know what really happens to me as a result of the experience.

Look at this…

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,  that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

I have bolded the words in the scripture that stand out to me today. It is to KNOW His love. To KNOW that He is pleased with us. To KNOW is to EXPERIENCE it.

When Jesus was to begin His public ministry, the Father came to Him personally and told Jesus that He was well pleased. Two things I see here. The Father confirmed who Jesus is. That’s a big deal in itself. If we know who we are in Christ, we are at the first and best place right there. It’s the starting point. To really know who you are – in Christ!

Then the Father goes on to tell Jesus personally that He is well pleased with Him. This gives Jesus affirmation that He belongs to the Father and that the Father is well pleased with Him. Now He could proceed with that knowledge and go forth to bring that love to others. Jesus was secure in that love – knowing every step of the way that no matter what He would encounter, He belonged to God and that His heavenly Father was right there with Him - well pleased!

Until we realize this, we are like a wandering sheep. We are confused about who we are, and we allow what the enemy says to us and about us become more real to us than what God is telling us. He had made it abundantly clear in His word who He is, who we are in Christ and how He feels toward us because of Jesus. Why do we doubt this?

As I was looking at the verse about God being pleased with Jesus (and us!), I ran across this passage…

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea,  all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. 

1 Corinthians 10:1-5

There was a group that God was NOT pleased with. Why? Because even though they all got delivered and baptized in the “cloud” with Moses; in other words, they received the same blessings that Moses had received; ate the same spiritual food and drank from the Rock, which was a type of Jesus, they were not satisfied. They longed for other things outside of what God had provided. This indeed did not please the Lord God.

If we don’t take the time to really know God’s love and see how bountifully He provides for us each and every day, our hearts will wander on to other things. This breaks God’s heart. How He longs for us to KNOW Him - His love. Through Christ He is pleased with us NOW!

We don’t have to earn it. I have spent most of my Christian walk thinking I had to earn His approval and love. Why? Because I was operating from my flesh and not from a heart experience that should have long ago taken root in my soul. This has caused me to walk in a lot of guilt, shame and condemnation. I thought every time I blew it that God would be so displeased with me and I would feel terrible.

If I had taken the time to really get to know His love and approval a long time ago – that love and approval my soul has desperately longed for as far back as I can remember, I would not have been so prone to wander off to other things, regardless of what those “other things” may be.

Case in point. Yesterday after dinner I made a banana bread. In the past I had thought I had a struggle with food. What the real problem was is exactly what we are talking about today. I didn’t really KNOW His love and that He is well pleased with me because of Jesus. I didn’t take the time to let this get rooted down in me so deep that no devil (nor my own toxic thinking) could convince me otherwise – just like Jesus.

But after the day I was experiencing yesterday as I stayed busy in my work and focused on His love and Jesus holding me in His arms all day, I felt really different. Sure, my flesh wanted a piece of that freshly baked banana bread that smelled so good coming out of the oven.

It was healthy and fresh – ready to be enjoyed. But I had just had dinner a little while before and really wasn’t hungry.I had been really hungry yesterday and ate three meals. That’s something I don’t do every day necessarily. But yesterday, I needed that. What I didn’t need was anything further after dinner. I asked the Lord to help me. I wanted Him to be pleased with my choice and I waited. As I did, He very lovingly whispered to me that I really could leave that for today. I agreed and that was the end of it. It felt good.

I went to bed feeling so free and so blessed. I fell asleep after listening to my recording about God’s love for me. This gave me the comfort I need and the reassurance of what He wants me to experience now like never before. It is awesome how He does what He does if we will just go along with Him. He wants all of us to experience this great love that passes human understanding.

Let’s look together at a few more verses that also make the point of what pleases God where we are concerned…

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. Galatians 1:15

This shows us that it PLEASED God to separate us for a specific purpose in this life. This is the example Paul gave about God being pleased to set him aside for the work of the ministry. In reality, Paul was a “marketplace” minister who was used to also preach in the synagogue and build the church. Paul was used by God to be a preacher in His tent making and in the church. All he did was to be used of the Lord to bring Jesus to people.It has pleased God to set you and me aside to do His work – His way. Isn’t that exciting? We have a great purpose. This PLEASES God! Hallelujah!

Let’s look further…

For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.  To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily. Colossians 1:19-29

This goes on to show us more about what pleases the Father. As Paul talks about what the Lord did in him and through him, we are seeing that it pleased God to reconcile you and me to Him so that we could live a holy life – above reproach. He wants us grounded in these things - unmovable from His love and the position He gave us in Christ Jesus.

Look at these verses carefully. Christ is IN US! He is the hope of glory – God’s glory in us! My friends, if we don’t get this down deep in our hearts, we will continue to stumble and vacillate in our hearts all over the place. We will be an easy target for the enemy because he can certainly tell when we are not sure of who we are IN Christ. If we think God is not pleased with us, that lie from the devil can convince us of a bunch of other lies and we will fall far from the grace we have received in Christ Jesus. That does not please God.

As we close this meditation, may it become true heart knowledge (experience) for you and me today. I often pray the prayer from Ephesians 3 about knowing the Father’s love. It was something the Samaritan woman desperately needed. That day at the well was the beginning of the revelation of Jesus (the Person of love) for her. It is also happening for me as I choose to meditate on this in the morning and throughout my day. I say it by faith: “Father, thank You for being pleased with me!” And now you can say it out loud too. Go ahead, right now…

God is pleased with _____________ Your name goes here!

Be blessed as you go in Jesus Name. Amen!

For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. 

2 Peter 1:17-18

Hanny Lynn Stearns

Fish N Loaves Ministries, Inc. 

Hannylynn05@gmail.com