Richard Owen Roberts

It is important that we have a firm understanding of what it means to please God. To state it succinctly, God is only pleased with that which is in perfect agreement with His perfections. God is only glorified in Himself either in beholding His innate triune perfections within His own being or observing Himself through His creation. Truly pleasing God from the creature’s perspective means being like God in moral and spiritual qualities.

John Hannah

To God be the Glory, Crossway, 2000, p. 31.

If you seek first to please God and are satisfied therein, you have but one to please instead of multitudes; and a multitude of masters are harder to please than one.

Richard Baxter

If I, an earthly father, can know such a sensation of pleasure in the well-being of my son, surely that gives an inkling of how our heavenly Father feels when we please Him. If we could only grasp and be grasped by this, our lives would be revolutionized.

Alistair Begg

Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 16.

In the film Chariots of Fire there is a memorable scene involving Eric Liddell and his sister, Jenny. She is chiding him for what she regards as his divided loyalty between his athletics and his commitment to Christ. She reminds him that God made him for Himself. He replies: “Aye, Jenny, I know, but He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.” For us, this may not be athletics. It may be accounting or selling or teaching or nursing or mothering. In the latter case, this would allow a mother to declare with conviction: “And when I make the lunches, I feel His pleasure.”

Alistair Begg

Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 19.

We make a great mistake if we think of (pleasing God) as a compartment of life marked “spiritual,” or “religious,” rather than as a total way of life involving pleasing God in all its aspects. We want to learn to be able to say with Paul, “We make it our goal to please Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Alistair Begg

Made For His Pleasure, Moody Press, 1996, p. 19.