Pleasing God

1 Corinthians 10:1-5 "I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2  In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3  All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4  and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5  Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness."

This scripture gives us an old testament picture of the modern day church. The children of Israel were baptized, following Moses and being feed spiritual food and water but with most of them God was not pleased. Now as a Pastor I believe in the local church and I know that unless you are connected to the body of Christ through the church, you are going to be very limited in what you will be able to do for the Glory of God.

But at the same time, the true measure of your Christianity is determined by how you act and live when you are not at Church. Paul proceeds in this scripture to warn us about some of the things that they were doing that causes God not to be pleased with them. The one that jumped out at me this morning is found in verse ten, it says "don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death." They were grumblers and grippers, they loved to complain about everything. The food, the living conditions, the leadership and even God. In spite of all that God had done for them they still focused on what they did not like or have, instead of being grateful for the amazing things that were happening around them every day.

This is were the comparison between them and us comes together. We are blessed, I mean really blessed. As America believers we have so much to be thankful for, yet so many grumble and grip about everything and I must say that God is not pleased. No matter where you are in your life we all have something to be grateful for, my challenge to you today is to count your blessings not your problems. Focus your attention on what you do have instead of upon what you don't have. Begin today to live with an attitude of gratitude, praise God for what he has done and is doing and allow the joy of gratitude to fill you heart and live a life that pleases God.