Day 50! Thanks for walking with me on this pursuit of God. I hope the Lord is doing wonderful things in each of you. I’m constantly praying for you all.
How am I doing in God’s eyes? Have you ever asked that question? All humans wonder about this but those who are serious about the pursuit of God begin to think of it more acutely. As we strive to serve Christ, it’s natural that we’d want to know if our service is being seen by the Lord. Is the Father proud of us?
Any student of the Bible understands that the Lord isn’t proud of everyone. In fact, some people provoke Him to anger. It’s possible to live in such a way that grieves the Holy Spirit. There are many examples in the Scriptures when God is seen closing His ears to the prayers of people. He drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden. He rejected the sacrifice of Cain. In Genesis 6 it says,
The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." — Genesis 6:5-7
Assessing ourselves
The very next verse, however, says, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (Genesis 6:8). And this is how the Bible reads. The Lord is blessed by some and vexed by others; He is pleased by some and displeased by others. It is completely logical and sensible that we should be concerned about how we are viewed in the Lord’s eyes. What does He think of us?
If I think of myself as a big disappointment to God, well, it’s going to affect me deeply. If I think all my efforts to seek and serve God have amounted to nothing before God, then, I will be slumped in my motivation. All the energy to pursue God will be drained from me if I see God as impossible to fully please.
All humans struggle to assess themselves clearly. After all, it is almost impossible not to be biased and partial in our judgment. Some tend to think of themselves more highly than they ought. Others tend to think of themselves much lower than they ought. Who can tell us the truth about how we are doing?
You may have heard it said that there are three different versions of ourselves. There’s the one that others see, the one that we see, and the one that God sees. Oh to know what God sees, when He sees us!
I’m inferior
I confess that my basic inclination is to think less of myself than I should. I have struggled with that for as long as I can remember. Psychology might call this an “inferiority complex.” It leads to fear and feelings of inadequacy about all kinds of things. As a kid, I didn’t feel as smart as other kids. I felt like everyone was more socially gifted than me. I didn’t feel good enough to be in the “in crowd” and didn’t feel like I could date the “popular girls.” This sort of thing—inferiority or superiority—isn’t always rational. But it’s hard to shake.
And guess what? When you become a Christian this problem doesn’t disappear. In my early years walking with Jesus, I constantly struggled. I didn’t just have low self-esteem but now I had the weight of feeling that God’s view of me was low. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was forgiven, I didn’t question that. But I just wasn’t convinced that God liked me, or that I was making Him proud.
I know what I’m talking about from experience when I say that having a distorted view of how the Lord thinks of you, will oppress you like a scorching humid New England day.
No surprise really
It’s not surprising that many of us imagine God is not proud of us. It’s a cruel world. Kids are mean, and when we get older, we find out adults can be mean too. If I counted all the times when people were disappointed and displeased with me—it would be an astronomical number!
Now, I know that everyone doesn’t experience equal measures of mean words from people. But we’ve all had our share. Part of the reason we feel low about ourselves is that we’ve been told by people we are stupid, or ugly, or fat, or uncoordinated, or awkward, or whatever. We’ve been called nasty names which seeped into us and shaped our innermost identity.
So when I became a Christian and started reading the Bible, I automatically identified with the people who were believers, but who were provoking God to anger because of their pretense. For years, I begged God to not only reveal His general love for all people but to reveal His feelings for me. I begged Him to let me know if my life was bringing Him pleasure. It’s a good prayer to pray. God has His ways of making this known to us.
God’s compliments
Throughout the Scriptures we see God commending different people. Another way to say it is that God sometimes compliments or praises a person for certain qualities. The Lord is incapable of flattery—so His compliments are sweet! Here’s a few that come to mind:
Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, — Genesis 4:4
And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor." — Judges 6:12
And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left. — 2 Kings 22:2
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. — Job 1:1
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" — John 1:47
Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. — Matthew 11:11
And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" — Luke 1:28
And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. — Acts 10:4
"'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. — Revelation 3:8
His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' — Matthew 25:23
It’s hard not to read verses like this and think, “I wonder what God thinks of my devotion to Him?”
Horizontally true
Even in our horizontal relationships we crave praise. Now, a desire for praise can become a terrible quality, we know. The religious teachers of Jesus’ day loved the praises of men and Jesus condemned that. But there is a place in the family of God for genuine encouragement. It’s nice when someone notices a good quality in us and lets us know. It’s nice when a boss, coach, teacher or parent intelligently compliments us. It affects us positively and always makes us want to excel more in the thing we are being praised for. The Lord designed us this way.
When an earthly father, for example, praises his son for hustling on the baseball field—the kid is moved to hustle even more in the next game! (That would be me at 9 years old by the way).
Scheme of Satan
For this reason, our invisible adversaries work hard to make us feel like everything we do and everything we are is lame before God. That the Lord God is unimpressed and maybe even somewhat repulsed. Satan loves to spew lies on us about how God is just tired of us, and we are just a big fat giant disappointment to the Lord.
What I’m saying is that we can’t trust our own assessment or ourselves, nor the assessments of others, and definitely not the assessment of the evil one. We need to know what the Lord thinks of us. This will affect our pursuit of God more than any other single thing we could know. Selah.
Seeing as God does
Coming to an honest assessment of ourselves isn’t as mysterious as you might think. It’s not hard to judge the character of someone you know really well. I’m talking about people we have known and maybe even lived with for years. People we’ve seen in thousands of situations. If we had to write a recommendation letter for this person we could do it very accurately. If the letter was for a mission organization or Christian school wanting to know what kind of spiritual life this person possesses, we could do it, easily. Why? Because we know how the Bible defines a fruitful Christian and we can see this fruit clearly in the person (or not).
This would be a strange thing for God to ask us to do, but, imagine if the Lord asked us to write a recommendation letter for ourselves to Him. And God told us that He wants us to really work hard to not present ourselves more highly than we should (pride) or too low (false humility). And He also told us the Holy Spirit can assist us with the letter. Do you think we could do it accurately? I know we could. It might be a helpful thing to do one day in our journals!
My friends, we need to understand that the Lord sees our hearts. Now, if we are living in willful sin and pretending to love God when we really do not—that’s another matter. But when deep down we want to be the sort of person who makes the Father in heaven proud, then—God notices that! It doesn’t mean we are perfect or that we never fail. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of growing to do. But God sees all that we are.
God sees all of you
Here are a couple of verses that used to terrify me—
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. — Psalm 139:1-3
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. — Hebrews 4:13
I used to always interpret these verses as meaning that God sees every imperfection, every sinful thought, every mixed motive, every dumb thing I say or do. This is true, of course. But it also means God sees every good thing we do and every kind thing we say. He sees the encouragement we give someone. He sees the gifts we lavish on others or the money we give to His purposes. He hears our cries and notices our silent sighs. He sees our inner craving to know Him and the good intentions of our heart. He sees all of us—the bad and the good. Yes, He sees our worst moments but He also sees our best.
For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. — Hebrews 6:10
Yeah, but
Even after reading all of this, you might be thinking, “Yeah, but, you don’t know me. I’m mostly bad and not very good.” Listen. That doesn’t even matter. All that matters is that you recognize that and desire to change. Maybe you’ve failed and faltered. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you come to Him for mercy. The beautiful thing about God is that when we come to Him broken, sinful, and contrite—He accepts us. The prayers and tears of the humble come up to the Lord as a memorial before Him. In truth, no one is good. All fall short. That’s why Christ died. But let’s realize that it is possible— through Christ—to offer to God acceptable worship. Brothers and sisters, we must live in a way that makes the Father proud, and we must know in our hearts that He indeed is proud. This is the secret to devotional drive.
Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, — Hebrews 12:28