Romans 8:8
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
There is nothing apart from the grace of God that pleases Him. There is no amount of self-righteousness, legalism, acts of goodness, or work we could ever do that justifies us standing before a holy God. To think for a second that anything we do warrants our ability to please God is a lack of a right view of His holiness. For to know God’s holiness is to know our depravity.
God’s love for us is entirely an act of grace on His part. His love for us is unwarranted, undeserved, incomprehensible, and unearned in any way. It is a free gift of grace to those who believe. The only way we can offer anything to the Lord that pleases Him is to do so through the finished work of His perfect Son. For the only person God the Father has ever said He is “well pleased” with is His Son.
Christ came and died for our sins that we might know God and be known by God. We are His people because of who Christ is. Christ bore the wrath of God on our behalf, that we might come before the throne of grace as a child of God. There is absolutely nothing we can do in our flesh to merit any of this grace; it’s all through Christ.
So our aim is to seek Christ. Our goal is to know Christ and the redemption and freedom found in Him. To please God is to know His only Son and to rest in His finished work. For He bore our sins on the cross that we might die to sin and live in righteousness. By His wounds we have been healed.
Mathew 3:17, 1 Peter 2:24
Father, thank You for Christ. I have often thought myself worthy of Your pleasure, worthy of deserving Your grace, worthy of knowing You, and yet all that is in my flesh and none of it honors and glorifies You. For nothing I do in my flesh pleases You; in fact, I cannot. My “goodness” adds nothing to You, nor does it warrant any pleasure from You; it is only Christ and Christ alone. Help me to know Christ, rest in Christ, seek Christ, and glorify Christ all the days of my life. Thank You for who You are and what Christ has done. In His name I pray. Amen