How can I please God?

A couple of weeks ago I started to read a book that is really close to be the bone. That is also why it takes me weeks to read - sometimes I have to put it aside and think about it or even pray that God shows me what it really means. But He is so wonderful - when I ask Him to show me what I don't understand he teaches me during life happens (which is not always the easiest way to learn something...). But it is worth it and today I just want to share something I - still - struggle a bit with. And that is the question "How can I please God?"

In the recent past I was so focused to "be a good girl, do the right things, work for the Lord " etc. that I was really struck when the author (click the picture on the left) clearly said, we will never be able to please God.
We are so used to the concept to make people happy by doing the right thing (it starts with our parents who we want to be proud of us) that I transferred that concept to my relationship with God.

Yes, I know: All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:12). That is why Jesus had to come and die on the cross. That is why we have to be redeemed, that's why we have to be reborn. That's why we have to be baptized into His death. The "old person" has to die, period. But it is so much easier to agree when it comes to obviously bad things like killing someone or lying or just bad habits we need to get rid of and we as christians easily want to let it go.
But what about "the honorable" things?
The "old person" is able to be friendly, to love, to do good things as well (ok, probably more when everything goes well because it is not so easy to stay friendly when someone hurts me) - but yes, we can be good and caring somehow. Otherwise we had no humanitarian groups or actions on this earth.
But God sees the source of all of it and so it can't please him, even if it is good in our eyes.

So, am I willing to give also "the good things" into His death? My talents, my accomplishments, my efforts?
This is probably the secret that will make me be able to say: For to me to live is Christ... (Philippians 1:21) and that is the only way God will be pleased: When he can see His beloved son living and acting in me.

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3 days later:
My problem was to realize again, that we, as human beings, will never be able to please our Holy God and so "earn" His love.
He loves us anyway and all the time. The "good works" are only expressions of our faith and not something to impress God. And nothing we are supposed to rely on or to be proud of. And nothing that will ever please Him.

Jesus in me has to become greater while I become less (Joh 3:30) and that's the only way to please God.

I found "Mr. Perfect"...

Well, it is just a kind of what you might think by reading the caption.

I even hesitated to write about it because it is so extremely different from what you hear and see every day, in other words "out of this world"...
It is like I discovered something that I want to keep only with me because I worry that it could be misunderstood and get lost. But at the same time I want to share it with the whole world.

It all started with a book, "Authentic Beauty" by Leslie Ludy. I would not consider me being part of her target audience (it seems more to be fit for teenage girls/young women) but there is a truth found in the book I am not too old for. I am glad I eventually found this living example the author draws in front of the readers eyes and I can't imagine how she must have felt sharing her life's story with the world by writing this book.
I actually found a post that summarizes the book better than I could do but I'll give you the link later because I do not agree when the author Carrie says "Ludy's approach to purity is more strict in nature to the one I prefer".

Since I decided to be an "authentic christian" I found it more and more difficult to really live it out. And here purity comes into play. Leslie writes:

Many of us know a lot about our Prince. But knowing about Him and knowing Him are two very different things. Do we know Jesus? Has He become the Lover of our souls, the essence of our every existence, the center of our entire beings, and the One for whom we would give up everything, including our very lives, to follow?
Knowing Him like that is not easy. In today's world (even the Christian world) we are usually living at an insanely frenzied pace of life, we are all too often bogged down with years of piled-up emotional baggage, we are distracted by confusing relationships or stressful circumstances, and we are bombarded by the relentless noise of the culture around us. The question is: how do we learn to know our Prince in the midst of all this? The answer is: we can't.

Jesus does not live at the frantic pace of this world. He is not found in the clanging clamor of the culture. His tender whisper is like a still, small voice that is quickly drowned out by our distracted minds and wandering hearts. To discover Him as our Prince, to know Him as our Lover - we must become like the princesses in our childhood fairy tales who were willing to leave everything else behind to follow the man each loved. We cannot stay where we are and go with our Prince.

To set a scenery that is able to hear "the still, small voice" Leslie provides some tools and one of it she calls "building-up an inner sanctuary". That implies to clean up my life and throw out all the bad stuff that could sneak into my heart and mind by concentrating on circumstances, people or just some TV-shows.
And if you start to clean up your inner sanctuary and start an intimate relationship with The Prince your inside will be changed and as a natural consequence your outside will change as well.

And there is something else:
Since I was a teenager I questioned myself if there was something wrong with me concerning guy/girl relationship. Sometimes I wondered if my standards were too high and if I was looking for something or someone that only exists in my fantasy: a perfect man. But the message of the book gave me to vivid insights:

• The perfect man is found in Christ. He desinged a woman to look for a soulmate and all her needs and desires are met if she realizes that the only existing soulmate for her life is Jesus. You will never find a human being on the whole earth that is so able to read your mind and answer your deepest longings like Him.
• There are still a few men outside who also decided to live a "set-apart life" and who are being transformed into christ-shaped manhood. They reflect the life and the character of the Great Prince and they are worth waiting for.
  

For the summary of "Authentic Beauty" read Carries blog.