What sorts of things have we done trying to make Him happy? The two that show up in big ways classically are sacrifice and ethics. Both of them come down to giving up something good to get something better. We give up small things to get big things. We give up "things" entirely to obtain ethical integrity. We give up the temporal for the eternal. Our whole life is an attempt to "trade up".
Of course, we have Christianized all of our habits, which is the same thing as secularizing Christianity, making Christ and the world agree. We don't sacrifice anymore we "surrender all", we don't become monks or take vows of poverty, we "live for God", We don't build temples, we do "kingdom work". We don't put our hope in ethics anymore, after all that is Law. We put our hope in believing something, in "being in a relationship with Christ", in "growing closer to Christ", in helping others "get saved". We "get right with God", we "get in the center of His will", and mysteriously we think that this is something other than self-righteousness.
But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all our RIGHTEOUSNESSES are like filthy rags Isaiah 64
Our righteousness, the things we do to get closer to God: our faith, our prayers, our efforts, our church attendance, our charity, our servant's hearts, our evangelism are disgusting to Him(literally "bloody tampons"). We think that because we don't do them to please God, we do them "out of gratitude", or "because we are changed", or because we love people, that somehow they do please Him. As if, being justified by grace we are sanctified by our own works. But they are still self-righteousness, we have just put lipstick on our pig selves. We have traded in God's Law for a new law that we call Christian, which isn't really new it is the same tricks we have been pulling since we stole that fruit in the garden.
I have spent so much effort describing this problem that you are probably expecting me to describe a solution now. Well there isn't one. It is always gonna be this way. You would be better off going fishing than going to church. Going to church makes our fool selves imagine we are making God happy when it really just pisses Him off. At least fishing doesn't mean further involving ourselves in works righteousness. If you can't pray without thinking that makes you a better person, in appropriately Christian terms of course,- and I can't- then you would be better off doing something that you know isn't good. Am I telling people to sin? No. I am telling you that everything you do is already sin and it is better to have your eyes open than to be your own dupe. It is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of joy. It is better to lose all hope, to despair, than to think that somehow, someday something you do will be good enough for God. We aren't even good enough for me and I have pretty low standards. Nothing you do is ever going to do any good, nothing you abstain from doing is ever gonna do any good.
This is the surprising context in which we hear something that IS new, that IS good. The only thing that could ever please God is what His Son has done, and that pleases Him immensely. Now before you get the wrong idea, our "imitation" of Him is just one more works righteousness that pisses God off. I will say it again, we will never do anything, be anything that doesn't fail before God. But what if when we keep doing the same dumb stuff, He instead sees His Son in our place. Instead of seeing me going to church and deceiving all of my friends into thinking I am a pretty good guy; He sees Christ giving His innocent life to save His enemies. Instead of hearing me praying my filthy selfish prayers; He hears Christ at His right hand interceding for my stupid self. Instead of hearing my foul-mouthed, self-centered idea of evangelism, He hears "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." Instead of seeing me thinking I am being like Christ when I act with completely different thoughts and motivations; He sees Christ perfectly revealing the true holiness, the glory of the Only Begotten.
Glorification doesn't consist of us being perfect. It consists of us being covered by Christ. All of the other parts of salvation consist of the same thing. Only one more thing remains to be said. That is that what God sees is the truth. I don't have any sensation or feeling of being seated at the right hand of God; but, if Christ is, I am. We are IN HIM. We are, in a mystery-or in Latin in a sacrament-Christ. You are what you eat.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.Genesis 2:24
Christ left His Father, joined Himself to my hopeless self, and now we are one. Doesn't look like, doesn't feel like it, but that is what a mystery is. It is bread, but it is His body. I am a miserable sinner, but I am accepted in the Beloved.
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