“God is easy to please but hard to satisfy”

I recently read this quote and it made me stop and think about the character of God as on first reading I did not understand what was being said. In terms of our service though it is about spot on.

Jesus told His disciples “And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward” Matt. 10:42.

Too often in life we think that we need to do some great gesture or plan some wonderful service to please God. Now, of course, God may well be pleased by these kinds of service but He also delights in the little things that we do for Him each day. Often these little acts of kindness will go unnoticed, even by those who benefit, but never by our faithful God. We should not grow weary in doing good, whether we think that what we do matters or not.

But nor should we become complacent! No matter how long we have been a disciple of the Lord Jesus, there is always room for improvement. Paul could say: “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” Phil. 3:13. He never felt that he could relax and had achieved sufficient to take it easy. There should always be a longing for a fresh understanding of the greatness of our God and an earnest desire to be more faithful. There is nothing more spiritually deadly than thinking that we have achieved all that we can do for Him. As another quote that I read said: “Jesus loves me just the way I am; but He loves me too much to leave me that way!”

How wonderful that we have a God who does love us just as we are but is constantly changing us until we are more like His precious Son. After all, that is the goal—to be like Him. “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” 1 John 3:2.