If you miss this, your life will never be right …

Do you know what makes God happy?

Are you having to guess at the answer to that question? Or do you know really know? It’s actually a critically important issue for us to know, because knowing what makes God happy, and how important that is to us, is supposed to be an underlying motivation of all that we do as Christians.

Look at this exhortation from the Apostle Paul:

“Carefully determine what pleases the Lord,” Ephesians 5:10.

If you have never done that, then chances are your pursuit in life is to make yourself happy rather than to please the Lord. In this culture where making ourselves happy is lifted to paramount status, we give little concern about what pleases God. But for the authentic disciple of Christ, what makes the Lord happy should be our greatest pursuit.

That fact reminds me of a story about a brilliant young pianist who was performing in public for the first time. The audience sat enthralled as beautiful music flowed from his disciplined fingers. The people could hardly take their eyes off this young virtuoso. As the final note faded, the audience burst into applause. Everyone was standing except for one old man sitting up front.

The pianist walked off the stage, crestfallen.

The stage manager praised the young man’s performance, but the musician responded, “I was no good, it was a failure.”

The manager replied, “Look out there, everyone is on their feet except one old man!”

“Yes,” said the youth, dejectedly, “but that old man is my teacher.”

In the same way, Paul says pleasing an audience of one is to be our objective:

“So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him,” 2 Corinthians 5:9.

Is that your goal? How important is pleasing the Lord to you? What would you have to do to carefully determine what pleases the Lord, and then live a life doing that? Will you?

Scotty