“For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” (Psalm 135:5)
I read that this morning and hesitated. I felt unsure about confidently expressing that verse to others. Doesn’t that sound arrogant? Conceited? Selfish?
In anyone else, “Yes”. Then I remembered God’s character is not man’s. That’s the difference.
He is holy. We are fallen. Don’t make the mistake of projecting onto God our sinful nature, and never interpret an action of God through the lens of human motivation.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways, my ways…. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Only God can reverse Psalm 135:5 and still be true. “Whatever the Lord does, pleases him.”
No man or woman can say that (at least not an honest one). Show me a person without regret for at least one action in their life and I’ll show you a person with serious delusions.
God is the ONLY being whose actions AND motives are pure. If you’ve never felt this truth in yourself, try reading Romans 7 again:
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
Doing the wrong things I don’t want to do. Not doing the right things I want to do. Impure actions and impotent motivations. That’s me.
Who will rescue me from how I know myself to be?
Only the One who has done all the right things I’ve failed to do and never done those things resulting in regret.
How? It’s the mystery of what God has done through Jesus.
“For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
This is what God does. And the pleasure? It’s indescribable in human terms. Found only in the divine character of God.
“…who for the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross…” (Heb 12:2)
And…
“…it pleased God through the folly of what we preach [the cross] to save those who believe.” (1 Cor 1:21)
Thank you to the God Who does whatever he pleases that “whatever He pleases, he does.”
