without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

The verb that is translates ‘to please’ is εὐαρεστέω euaresteó and means ‘to be well-pleasing’, which be extension could be ‘to render good service’.  This verse reads literally:

and apart from faith it is impossible to please well, for it behoveth him who is coming to God to believe that He is, and to those seeking Him He becometh a rewarder.  (YLT)

The writer of Hebrews clarifies an eternal truth, that the unregenerate, that is anyone that is not granted salvatory faith, can never do anything to gain to God’s favour. 

This is important because it is also clearly seen that the regenerate man and woman does not have a monopoly on goodness as the world sees it.  Many people who neither acknowledge nor esteem God may yet be extremely inclined to altruism and philanthropy; moreover, they may exhibit many qualities bestowed by Holy Spirit: 

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control… (Galatians 5:22-23)

Thus, they may be loving and joyous in nature, kind, gentle and goodly people, generous to a fault; they may be patient and with an abundance of temperance, faithful in their human relationships.  

But faithfulness to God is only ever God-given: 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  (Ephesians 2:8-9).

The process whereby God grants faith (justification) can never be in recognition of ‘works’, as nothing pleased God up until that point.  The Apostle Paul is emphatic because it is so easy to think that ‘justification’ is gained by correct attitude or behaviour, somehow making salvation a reward.

Indeed, close examination of the head quotation reveals the same:

…whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him…

First comes belief, or faith, in God and then only as the believer seeks God comes reward.  This means if anyone should think of their own journey to faith as one of seeking God, there are in error.  As the non-believer knows nothing of God, seeking Him can only come after justification.  People may say ‘I came to Christ’ but in reality, it can only ever be that Jesus came to them, as indeed he did as Immanuel, ‘God with us.’  It is always God who takes the initiative.

Returning then to the issue of pleasing God, it can be reductively reasoned then that the only difference between a believer and the non-believer is the believer has now the opportunity to please God – but this comes with a huge caveat.

While it was impossible to please God without faith, turning the statement into a positive can lead to faulty thinking.  In other words, although one might legitimately hazard that with faith it is possible to please God, it does not mean you will!

An expression of this fallacy is the oft-heard statement, ‘Jesus accepts me as I am’. At the point of justification that has to be patently true.  Paul is emphatic on this matter, also:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:9-10)

Building on his previous assertion that all has sinned and fallen short of his glory (ibid 3:23) Paul is making it plain that only enemies of God are justified; but in seeking God one must strive to change. Jesus advocates putting the everyday cares in the lap of God’s providence and for all to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), this is a process (sanctification) that only begins after faith – and it does require ‘work’ on the part of the justified.

Therefore, the danger is in thinking that once justified, the believer automatically pleases God.  This draws out an important and critical distinction.  While God works for His good pleasure, whether any individual’s ‘work’ pleases Him is quite another matter.  This time Paul illustrates to the Greek church:

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

The process of refinement, or sanctification is then unlike that of justification, as it does require human participation.  And this is an undertaking of hope that we might please God:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame… (Romans 5:1-5)

So how does the believer seek to please God and, should they be successful in this endeavour, how will His pleasure be evidenced given there will be necessary suffering?  

The process of sanctification is nothing less than an incredibly difficult journey of submission to the commandments of Jesus.  Only in an obedient attitude can one take some confidence in his gaining God’s pleasure – but it should be further noted that the positive commandments cannot be glibly obeyed.  

Take the ‘greatest and first commandment’ (Matthew 22:37-38) for example, can any say that they love God with every fibre of the being all of the time?

In acknowledgement of this, Jesus asks his disciples to pray ‘forgive us our debts’, as our debt includes how all fall short of his glory even after justification.   And prayer for further understanding of God’s ways is the only appeal, as Moses prays this:

…if I have found favour in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favour in your sight.  (Exodus 33:13)

Paul uses the example of Moses and the desert wandering to the illustrate that the issue of moral freedom is in choosing to obey Jesus in the hope of pleasing God and receiving heavenly reward:

…with most of (the Israelites freed from Egypt) God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.  Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. (1 Corinthian 10:5-6)

Pleasing God, then, is a choice and a hope, but nothing in Scripture gives temporal certainty or confirmation.  hope, sign or fulfilment of the reward to follow on from His pleasure.

Whether you are blessed with ease, comfort or wealth or suffer hardship, loss and privation, neither state indicates your standing with God.  Jesus states:

For (God) makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.(Matthew 5:45)

This asserts that ‘The Law of the Harvest’ (that is, you reap what you sow) does not apply in the temporal – noting that since Jesus, God does not speak specifically and plainly as he once did through his prophets to Israel, as here through Moses.

Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.  (Deuteronomy 28:63)

The prophetic communications mostly to Israel, temporal reward and punishment are not repeated to individuals in the New Testament (with the possible exceptions of Ananias and Sapphira and Simon the Sorcerer, Acts 5 and 8 respectively). 

Pleasing God is then an attitude of faith; trusting that He will reward the obedient and that reward will be realised in the eternal.  The writer of Hebrews speaks of the trust of those who lived in times before Jesus who sought God in face of suffering:

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated -of whom the world was not worthy – wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised,since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:35-40)

It is God’s pleasure to redeem and then to expect all to submit to a process of proving.  And the choice to submit willingly or resist is a matter of faith that one will incur God’s pleasure or displeasure.  Thus, James can say:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Jesus speaks much of rewards in the hereafter, eternal and spiritual, and any hardship, loss and suffering, is be considered as ‘joy’.

The believer is required to believe in the teeth of all the evidence that they can please God, founded on hope those that endure the trial of their faith will lack nothing, not even God’s approval.  But and if one’s choice of friendship expresses pleasure in fellowship, Jesus makes this approval conditional:

You are my friends if you do what I command you.  (John 15:14)

Obedience is the only way any can hope to please God.