How To Make God Happy

Can you remember the first time you fell in love?  Wasn’t it somewhat magical and perhaps breathtaking?  Didn’t you feel such incredible joy in your heart?  Didn’t you want to do whatever it took to make the object of your love feel happy?

I remember when Billy Graham was asked that question.  He said, “When I told my parents that I was in love they told me,  ‘that’s puppy love.’ I said, ‘Maybe so, but it sure feels real to the puppy.’”  

Jesus tells us in Luke 10:27:  “. . . You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. . .”

What would it take to love God like that?  How could we make God happy more than anything else?  The Bible tells us exactly how to do that. In the 15th chapter of Luke, Jesus tells three stories about how to make God happy.  The story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.  In the story of the Prodigal Son who was lost, the father represents God who waits patiently for the lost son to return.  When God sees him, He runs to greet him and hugs him.  It is the only time in the Bible that reveals God ever running.  God is so happy he says, “ . . . this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.  And they began to be merry.”   In the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin, whey they are found, Jesus says, “ . . . there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents . . . “

We live in a lost and fallen world.  As Christians, the Lord has given us the Great Commission to, “make disciples of all the nations . . .”  We are instructed to reach out to the lost and invite them to church.  Church statistics point out that over 80% of people who come to church were invited by a friend.  Can you be a friend to the lost, and invite them to church?  If you want to make God happy, and make the angels rejoice, this is how to do it.