Well Pleasing – Part 5
Who can please God? For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation (Psalm 149:4). God takes pleasure in His people, and His people can please Him. The apostle Paul discusses who God’s people are under Christ Jesus. He writes, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God” (Romans 2:28-29). The Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah. In this, they did not please God. First Thessalonians 2:15 says the Judeans “killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men.”
To be God’s people today, we must, as Paul said, undergo circumcision of the heart. Colossians 2:11-12 says, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” When one is baptized, a person is forgiven of sin and his heart is circumcised. “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). This is when someone becomes a Jew inwardly, and part of God’s family through Abraham. Galatians 3:26-29 says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
God bless you, and I love you.
Kevin Cauley