Gloria Copeland - Pleasing the Father

Pleasing the Father

Right now I'm hungrier for God than I have ever been in my life. I'm hungry to know Him better. I'm hungry for a greater manifestation of His presence. I'm hungry for Jesus to be fully formed in me.

I'm not alone in that desire. Far from it. Everywhere I go, I see believers who are desiring more of God. I meet Christians whose hearts are crying out to be changed and filled with greater degrees of the glory of God.

A sense of urgency has been implanted in our spirit by the Spirit of God because the end of this age is very near. Time is running out, and God is fulfilling His plan in us. He is preparing for Himself a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle. He is raising up a people who will walk in the things He has prepared for them.

God is bringing forth a multitude of believers who will fulfill the divine destiny prepared for them since the beginning of time. That destiny is defined clearly in Romans 8:29:

For those whom [God] foreknewof whom He was aware and loved beforehandHe also destined from the beginning (foreordaining them) to be molded into the image of His Son [and share inwardly His likeness], that He might become the first-born among many brethren (The Amplified Bible).

Our destiny as believers is to grow up in Jesus. It's to be fully conformed to His image which was placed within us the moment we were born again.

It's a staggering thought that you and I could ever truly be transformed into that divine image. It seems almost impossible that we could be like Jesus. But God says we can be. In fact, the Bible says He has equipped us with everything necessary so that we might continue growing and developing:

Until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God; that [we might arrive] at really mature manhoodthe completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christs own perfectionthe measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ, and the completeness found in Him (Ephesians 4:13, The Amplified Bible).

If anyone other than the Spirit of God had written that, I wouldn't be able to believe it. But the Spirit of God did write it! So as amazing as it seems, we must simply believe that He has the ability to conform us to Jesus so completely that we "...become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!" (Ephesians 3:19, The Amplified Bible).

We Must Do Our Part

Not only is God able to do that, it is His will for us. It is His end-time plan. But whether or not that divine will comes to pass in our own individual lives is up to us. If we want to be a part of God's plan, we must do our part of God's plan.

That's how it has always been. In Genesis 18:19, God said of Abraham: "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him."

Abraham's part was to cooperate with the Lord. If Abraham didn't do that, if he didn't obey what God told him to do, God couldn't fulfill His promise to make Abraham a father of many nations, even though it was God's will.

The same is true for us today. It is God's will that we be conformed to the image of Jesus. It is His will to manifest Himself in our lives just as He manifested Himself through Jesus' life. But He cannot do it until we do our part.

Our part is simply this: to walk pleasing before Himto think His thoughts, to speak His words. In other words, to walk in His ways.

If we want to fulfill our divine destiny and enjoy the fullness of the power of God in our lives, we must make a decision and a determination to stop living to please ourselves and start living every moment of every day to please the Father. We must walk out the prayer the Apostle Paul prayed for the Colossians:

...That ye might be filled with the knowledge of [Gods] will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power... (Colossians 1:9-11).

Notice that verse connects pleasing the Lord with the manifestation of God's glorious power. It says they come together.

The life of Jesus was proof. He said, "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29).

We talk a lot about the fact that God will never leave us nor forsake us. And it's true, He is always with us. But we have to admit, His power is not always in manifestation.

In Jesus' life, however, God's power was constantly in manifestation. Every moment of every hour of every day, Jesus walked in the measureless, manifested power and presence of God because He always did those things that pleased the Father.

I am able to do nothing from

Myselfindependently, of My own accordbut as I am taught by God and as I get His orders. [I decide as I am bidden to decide. As the voice comes to Me , so I give a decision.] Even as I hear, I judge and My judgment is right (just, righteous), because I do not seek or consult My own willI have no desire to do what is pleasing to Myself,

My own aim, My own purposebut only the will and pleasure of the Father Who sent Me (John 5:30, The Amplified Bible).

And He Who sent Me is ever with Me; My Father has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him (John 8:29, The Amplified Bible).

God was able to say of Him, "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11).

Light...Not Twilight!

There's no reason why we as believers can't please God as much as Jesus did. We have a reborn spirit made in His image. We've been given His righteousness. We've been filled with the same Holy Spirit. We have all the capacity that Jesus had in the earth to be just like Him and to do the works that He did because He lives in us. The scripture says "...Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

He was dedicated. He was totally sold out to God. He was without sin. The Bible tells us many times He ministered to the multitudes all day and then prayed all night, yet Jesus had a flesh and blood body just like yours and mine. He enjoyed a good night's sleep just as much as we do. So there was an element of crucifying the flesh involved in giving up that sleep and doing what pleased God. He had to say no to His flesh, and yes to the Father.

"Well, Gloria, I know Jesus did that, but God doesn't expect that kind of self-sacrifice from us."

Yes, He does. First Peter 4:1-3 says:

So, since Christ suffered in the flesh [for us, for you], arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having the mind of Christ] has done with [intentional] sinhas stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God. So that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by [his] human appetites and desires, but [he lives] for what God wills. For the time that is past already suffices for doing what the Gentiles like to do... (The Amplified Bible).

It's time for the Church to stop living like gentiles (or the sinners) do! It's time for the Church to live like God says, regardless of what the world around us is doing. Just because the morals of the world slip doesn't mean the morals in the Church should slip.

It doesn't matter how dark this world becomes, we are to be the light of this world. Not the twilight of the worldthe light!

We need to fight against compromise by arming ourselves with the commitment to suffer in the flesh rather than fail to please God. To suffer in the flesh doesn't mean to bear sickness and poverty without complaining. Jesus already bore sickness and poverty for us along with every other curse of the law so that we can be free from those things. We are expected to resist that curse in Jesus' Name.