Pleasing God

Pleasing God

It’s not very popular to write about sin. People always want to point their fingers at church people and accuse us of being judgmental and bigoted when we mention sin.

I try not to be overly concerned about the sins of others. As a pastor, that may seem to be an odd thing to say, but my biggest concern is my own sin. While I work to help others control their sin issues, I’m a sinner, too. I still struggle just like everybody else.

Why is it that we continue to sin, even when we want to stop? Paul and David were two of the most godly men who ever lived and they wrote these words:

Romans 7:15

“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

Psalms 51:3

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

That’s pretty serious stuff but it tells us that we all struggle to stay on godly paths. RC Sproul was one of my favorite teachers and he summarized the problem like this:

“The reason we continue with these pockets of repeated sins is because we have a heartfelt desire to continue them, not because we have a heartfelt desire to stop them. We need to face the fact that we commit the sin because we want to do that sin more than we want to obey Christ at that moment.”

It’s a matter of the heart. We will never put our sin behind us until we learn to love God more than we love our sin. We all have hearts that are torn between the desires for earthly pleasure and the beauty of heavenly joy. It’s as simple as that. Our hearts must want to please God more than our own self.

That is the battle we wage every day. Until that day comes, I strive to follow the teachings of Paul in 2 Corinthians 10, taking every thought captive, and I continue to pray this prayer from David’s own lips:

Psalms 51:10

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”