Hoekstra's Day by Day by Grace (June 9th)

God Working in Us What Pleases Him

Now may the God of peace…make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Once again, our attention is focused upon Hebrews 13:20-21. In the two previous devotionals, we saw that the God of peace makes obedience available to us through the blood of Christ and then He equips us to do His will. Now we will see that this involves God working in us what pleases Him.

Obedience is about pleasing God, doing "what is well pleasing in His sight." This is why Christ died for us. "He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:15). Living to please self is the ultimate disobedience to God. As God's children, we want to live for His approval. "Walk as children of light…proving what is acceptable to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8-10).

The ordained means for us to live pleasing in His sight is God at work in us: "the God of peace…working in you what is well pleasing in His sight." We cannot properly live obedient, pleasing lives for God, unless we look to Him to work within us. When the Lord is relied upon to work within us, He then expresses His heart and will through us. "Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). This is how the early church effectively pleased the Lord in their service. "For He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles" (Galatians 2:8).

Ultimately, pleasing God by doing His will is an internal matter of the heart. "That He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints" (1 Thessalonians 3:13). When our Lord returns, He wants to find obedient children. He wants His followers to be "blameless in holiness before our God and Father." This is only possible as we trust our God to do a spiritually stabilizing work deep within us: "That He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness."

Not surprisingly, all of God's working within us is done "through Jesus Christ." It is all based upon who Jesus is, all that He has done for us, and all that He alone can accomplish as He lives in us!