More or Less

By Lisa Tchividjian

“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.”—Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

So, how do we please God? When I first became a Christian, I was very concerned about the list of things I couldn’t do. I was happy I asked Jesus to be my Savior—I wanted a relationship with Him. But the world kept whispering in my ear that all the fun things in life would be taken from me in exchange for a life of pleasing God. 

That was a lie—the same lie Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden (the lie of more). Satan told Eve that if she ate the fruit she’d have more. She could be her own God. Yet the truth was that if she ate the fruit, she’d have so much less. She gave up eternity for death. She gave up her relationship with God to being separated from God. She gave up her home and even the future of her children for a moment of pleasure. God had given her so much more than a piece of fruit, and Satan tricked her into trading it all for a lie. 

Hebrews 11:6 (MSG, emphasis added) reads, “Anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.” This is where faith comes in. We have to believe that God wants more for us than we can possibly imagine. 

So often, we believe the lie that sin will be fun and exciting. But the moment quickly fades, and all that we traded for the sin becomes evident. An affair costs our marriage, flooding our minds with social media causes anxiety, excessive spending causes debt, neglecting our health causes sickness. These simple pleasures are a smoke screen that put a wedge between us and God. We believe the lie that we’ll get more, but the truth is we’ll receive a life of less.

So, the question remains, “How do we please God?” By believing that God’s plan for our lives will be a life of more, rather than buying the lie of the world that always leads to less. Faith is believing what we don’t see. Yet the longer we walk with God the more we see how His plan for our lives is good and how faithful He really is. 

One of my favorite songs is by Jason Upton called “Write Everything Down.” When we look back and see God’s faithfulness it builds our faith. That’s why our spiritual forefathers wrote everything down, so they could remember God’s faithfulness when the world tried to feed them a lie. 

God loves us beyond what we can think or imagine. He wants us to experience an abundant life filled with love, joy, peace, purpose, and most importantly a relationship with Him. So, let’s build our faith, for God’s greatest pleasure is to see us living our best life.

Pause: What lie is Satan whispering in your ear today?

Practice: Write down a time in your life when you saw the faithfulness of God.

Pray: Lord, build my faith, so I may believe You want to give me a life of more. Amen.