Please appease

Some time ago this little sentence got stuck in my head from out of the blue: You can't appease God, but you can please Him.


What it means is this. You can't "get right" with God, or to be precise, you can't be righteous, by doing things. When you try, that's called legalism, and it's bad. Now most churches that I know are very messed up when it comes to this subject. They say they're trying to avoid legalism, so they act exactly like the world does. I guess in their minds, if you do anything "good" to improve your relationship with God then you're legalistic. (And of course at the same time they do things to make themselves feel like "good Christians" such as go to church every sunday...)

The place they mess up on this subject is that they seem to forget that God is a conscious entity that is constantly here and wants to see us do His will. True, doing your best to keep the ten commandments won't get you to Heaven - but if you try, with a pure heart, it will surely improve your relationship with God.

So don't do something thinking that it will make you any better - it won't. Hope this doesn't offend anyone, but everyone thinks that Mother Teresa was one of the greatest people ever to live...when really, all those good works she did would have gotten her nothing but Hell. Absolutely no work you do on this earth will get you to Heaven. It's your relationship to Jesus only. But again, just because those works did nothing as far as getting to Heaven, that doesn't mean those works didn't please God.

You can't appease God - but you can please Him.