Hebrews 11: 6 says, ⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

I’ve given some thought recently to the two essential beliefs here that go along with pleasing God.

1. He exists

This is pretty basic I guess but I think it is worthy of some attention. If I were to be totally honest I would say that I sometimes treat God more like an idea than a personality. A person is someone that you would talk to and approach relationally. I sometimes approach God in this way but there are times when I think of him more along the lines of a force that I hope will mysteriously act in my life. The first essential belief in pleasing God is believing that he exists. We must believe that he has a personality. That he is someone that we can interact with. That the fact that we were created in his image means that he has desires, a mind  and real emotions. We should be careful not to anthropomorphize God meaning that we should not assume that he’s the same as us but we can go too far in the other direction as well. We can treat him as so distant and different than us that we do not approach him relationally.

2.  He rewards those who earnestly seek him

We have to believe that it’s worth our time to seek him. If we actually believe that he exists then it should flow naturally for us that it is worthwhile to seek him but sometimes this is not so easy. There are times when my faith is not put in action. I choose to not pursue him sometimes because I don’t really believe he is going to show up. Can you relate? If I wake up earlier for prayer, is he really going to speak to me? If he spend more time reading the Bible, am I really going to get something out of it? If I give more of my money to kingdom related pursuits, is it really going to work out well for me? This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to faith. We can believe that he exists without believing that he rewards those who earnestly seek him but we can’t believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him without believing that he exists. 

So how is your faith? Do you believe that God exists? Do you believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him? I suggest that you spend some time on these two essential beliefs when it comes to pleasing God.