Most of us understand that the God we serve is a God of love. As a matter of fact, the Bible says that God is Love (1John 4). The third chapter of the Gospel of Saint John says that God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son. Even though many of us are familiar with the love of God, and even serve Him out of our love for Him, a lot of times our motivation in doing His will is to avoid the punishment or the wrath or the judgment of God. Yes, the God we serve is a God of judgment and discipline. The Scripture says very clearly that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth (Hebrews 12). However, our desire to serve God and be obedient to God should not grow strictly out of some "punitive-avoidance" mode. We ought to want to serve God and obey God in order to give God pleasure.
I don't think that for a lot of us, as believers in Christ, that we approach our relationship with God enough from the vantage point of giving God pleasure. Not just "pleasing God" in the generic sense of the term, but actually giving Him pleasure, that when we perform a particular act, when we say a particular thing, when we abstain from a particular behavior or attitude, that the Father is going to actually derive pleasure from what we do.
This is the zone that we need to move into in the Spirit. Not just trying to please God because we "don't want to get in trouble" or because He's Big Bad God (and believe me, He Is); but because we want Him to be pleased, we want Him to have joy, we want Him to be genuinely happy with us.
The Scripture says that all things were created by God for His pleasure (Revelation 4). We must always keep in mind that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship; and it's a relationship likened unto a husband and a wife (John 3). Therefore, in an intimate relationship, you don't want somebody doing something for you strictly out of "fear." You don't want somebody relating to you and doing things to appease you just so you won't get "mad" or angry or upset. You want somebody doing nice things for you because they know that this is what you enjoy. This is what you like. This is what makes you happy. This is what gives you...pleasure. This is what The Father wants.
Yes, He wants us to bask in His love, and yes He wants us to operate in reverence and holy fear (Proverbs 1). But He wants the relationship to mature to the point to where our motivation for serving Him and being obedient to Him grows out of the objective of giving Him pleasure.
When the Father ordained Jesus into the office of Sonship (Luke 3), He Sealed His Sonship with the words, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus mastered not just pleasing the Father out of ritual obedience, but giving the Father pleasure because He knew everything that He did, the Father would derive happiness from.
Let us follow our Master's footsteps and not just celebrate the love of God but also focus and commit ourselves to the pleasure of God.
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