Pleasing God..

It's late. I've brushed my teeth, put on my deo and said my evening prayer. But, here I am. Sitting in the dark, typing away, burning up these laptop keys. I had this feeling, this urge to come and blog about what I read earlier in the Bible.. I was sitting on the sofa this afternoon, watching these kids play, bouncing around the house, "rasslin" as my great grandmother calls it. I don't know why, but it made me want to read the book of Romans. Maybe because it talks about power and when I think about "rasslin" I think power. It talks alot about God's power. His power over us, over sin. It talks about how we receive forgiveness through God's mercy. It's a big ole' book talking about how awesome and powerful God is.

I was stuck in chapters 5-8. These chapters are big on sin. About how we receive forgiveness for our sins. About how sin's power over us is broken. About how God's law reveals our sins. About how there is no condemnation in Christ. Chapter 8, Verse 3. "We aren't saved from sin's grasp by knowing the commandments of God, because we can't and don't keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful, and destroyed sin's control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins.". This leaped out from the page at me. The minute I finished that, I pictured in my head Jesus on the cross, blood all over his body, beaten, bruised, the crown of thorns on his head. It hit me hard, I stopped reading, went upstairs and prayed. I thanked God, with everything I had, all that was in me, for giving his Son, his ONLY son, for me. Later that day, I picked back up where I left off. Chapter 8, verse 4. "So now we can obey God's law if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.". Now that Jesus has died for us, now that He has sacrificed himself for our sins, we can live again, pure and through the Holy Spirit, we can be saved from sin. Verse 5. "Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves, but those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that PLEASE GOD.". Pleasing God, that's big. I want to do everything in my power, put all I have into doing what pleases God. I mean, that is the least I can do, right? After He gave up his son, for me.. It just seems right, seems like the logical thing to do. Verse 6. "Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death." Verse 7 goes on to say. "Because the old sinful nature within us is against God. It never did obey God's law and it never will." We all sin, we all slip up and do things out of our "old, sinful nature". That's why God gave up his son, so that no matter how many times we slip up, no matter how many times we fall. He will always be there, lifting us back up, helping us and pointing us in the direction we need to go. All we have to do is try our hardest to please God. We do that and we get peace, we get life. That seems like a pretty nice offer to me. Of course, could you expect anything less from such a generous God?