280. Fulfill God’s Pleasure
2 Thessalonians 1:11b …and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness,…
Paul prays, secondly, for you always that God will fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness in your lives. The condition of this promise is that someone, or I myself, will pray for me that God will be pleased with my life according to His goodness. If you pray for it, then God promises to feel good about you. This is another way of praying: “Make me a better person.” Or, we can put the prayer in Jesus’ words: “Thy will be done.”
God’s will is always good, for God is always good. When His will is done God is well pleased; it gives Him good pleasure. Will = pleasure. It is an insightful revelation for me to believe that I could make God feel good. Of course, God feels good and does only good all the time, with or without my good works. God doesn’t need my good works, but other people do. And when God uses me to make other people feel good, God feels good, the other person feels good, and I feel good. Goodness makes everybody feel better; everybody wins. What could go wrong? Nothing.
However, being good and doing good things does not come naturally to selfish sinful humans. I cannot fulfill God’s pleasure; I will not do His will; I cannot improve my life or make it better by self-effort or seven steps to self-improvement. God must do it for me, and He desperately wants to, but He needs me to be willing to trust God the Spirit to make it happen. So I pray. “God help me; I can’t do it.” God promises to hear and answer such a prayer that He Himself told us to pray. He will fulfill.
God is ready and willing to turn us from self-pleasing lives to God-pleasing lives. The only question remaining is: Am I willing? Pray to let God do it. God will be pleased, and when God is pleased I am blessed. Philippians 2:13: “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” God does it; I don’t.