Pleasure For God

Do you think God loves it when we discover Him to be as good as He says He is? I do too. It’s probably pretty high up there on His Daily-Thrill-O-Meter. So, take a look at the following:

"He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." (Eph 1:5-10)

I used to picture the sins of the world, the sins done long ago, sins now being done, and those that will be done by everyone everywhere, as sort of heaped on Jesus when He was nailed to the cross. There's the scene—Jesus bloodied and battered, with sins that reached to the sky piled atop Him . What a terrible burden. What a sight.

However, a while back it dawned on me that all those sins, yours and mine, weren't just stacked up on Jesus, they became His. No, He didn't commit them, but He took ownership of them, as if He had committed them. And as was just, God punished Jesus with the punishment due each and every one of those sins—the punishment we would have borne had they still been our sins.

Think of them all! Or, just think of yours. Every single failure became His failure, every nasty deed you've done, every ugly thought you've had, every act born of jealousy or vengeance, each impure act or prideful thought, every deception you've ever offered became His. As though He had done it.

Immediately following Paul's description of our being made new creations through Christ, he writes a single sentence describing how that all happened: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor 5:21, italics mine.)

Not only have we had our sins forgiven, we've had them removed, as though we had never done them—not even one! And, we've been given the righteousness of Christ as our own. What a trade.

We have been entirely redeemed, made completely right with God! In Him (which is where you and I are), we are perfect sons and daughters, without stain or blemish, or any question as to our belonging in the family. C'mon, that's amazing! It's God's amazing grace that He knowingly and delightedly lavished on us, "according to His good pleasure."

What does God like? What gives Him pleasure? Lavishing His sons and daughters.

We're better off than we think, and it's sure good to think about it. I bet He likes it when we do.