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Mable’s life has been one long, exhausting journey of performing for people, for acceptance, and eventually, for God. She admitted she could not remember a single season in her life when she was free from obsessing over what others thought about her. Every sphere—her wardrobe, her vehicle, her phone, her house—was filtered through an invisible committee of judges whose opinions controlled her decisions. The fear of disapproval hovered over her like a cloud.
She pursued personal fitness obsessively, not because she delighted in caring for her body as an act of stewardship, but because she was acutely aware of cultural standards of beauty. She stretched the truth to make herself sound more interesting, fabricated stories to gain approval. She would never bring a modest lunch from home, fearing how others might perceive her frugality. She preferred to go into debt over disapproval. Mable’s relationship with her boyfriend mirrored this pattern. Though her conscience stirred under the weight of his pressure to compromise sexually, she submitted. She feared rejection more than she valued integrity. Being in a relationship—even a destructive one—made her feel wanted. She exchanged her peace for his proximity.
Her counselor quickly recognized the core issue: fear of man (Proverbs 29:25). He rightly told her she needed to learn what it means to please God instead of people. From there, he laid out a typical biblical counseling action plan: prayer, Bible reading, and serving others. Though well-intended, the advice bypassed Mable’s core problem. The counselor failed to define what it actually means to please God to a woman whose adult life had been determined by earning favor through performance. For a people-pleaser, “please God” sounded like another audience to impress, another standard to meet, another list to keep.
What Mable did next was entirely predictable—she did what she had always done. She performed. She doubled down. She redirected her efforts from all of her horizontal relationships to a vertical one. And once again, Mable was stuck in the same old habit; she remained unchanged at the core of her heart. She hadn’t left performance behind. She had only shifted her audience.
And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).
Only one person has perfectly pleased the Father: Jesus Christ. His life was spotless, his obedience flawless, and his mission fulfilled completely. The pleasure of the Father rested fully on the Son, not because of effort but because of perfection. It is through Christ’s finished work that the door was opened for us to experience God’s good pleasure.
Without faith it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Pleasing God is not rooted in what you do—it’s rooted in trusting the One who already did it all. Even at your most disciplined, even with your longest quiet time, your most self-sacrificing service, your most moral behavior, you would fall short. “All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6). Mable is a sincere believer. She trusts Christ for salvation but not fully for sanctification. She believes the gospel saved her, but now assumes her spiritual growth depends on her performance. When she was trying to please others, she was exhausted. Now she’s trying to please God, and she’s still exhausted. She assumes God’s pleasure fluctuates based on her current spiritual track record.
When she reads her Bible, she feels worthy. When she misses a devotional, she feels spiritually inferior. She tracks her performance like a scoreboard, believing God’s favor rises and falls with her consistent quiet time or how much she serves at her local church. Her community reinforces this faulty logic. When she has a hard day and someone comments, “Maybe you’re not prayed up today,” it affirms her belief that God’s pleasure can be earned—and lost—based on her performance. Her list-driven lifestyle became overwhelming. What began as enthusiasm and anticipation turned to fatigue and frustration. The bar kept rising, and her ability to reach it kept falling. Discouragement settled into despair. Her theology was no longer functional; it was crushing.
Some might ask, “Isn’t obedience essential?” Yes, but it must be rightly understood and sequenced. Obedience is not a means to gain God’s favor—it is a response to God’s prior favor through the works of Christ. It is the natural overflow of trust, not the manufactured product of guilt. It is true that Paul wrote, “We make it our aim to please Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9), but he followed that by explaining that pleasing God flows from a life of faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). The contrast is clear: pleasing God does not mean doing more. It means trusting more, and trust results in joyful obedience. Notice the sequence of Paul’s gospel logic:
Mable must go back—not to start over with a new list—but to begin again with a gospel-calibrated heart. She needs to grasp that God’s pleasure in her is grounded in Christ’s work, not hers. Because she is united with Christ, God is already pleased. There is no “more in Christ” for Mable to achieve. Obedience will not move her further into His love. Her obedience is the functional evidence that she’s already in Christ as much as she will ever be. She must be vigilant against the subtle lie that says her obedience earns a better standing with God. That deception is seductive, especially for someone whose habits have long been shaped by fear of rejection and a compulsion to perform.
Obedience is not passive, but active. It always assumes effort, but it is always an effect, not a cause. It’s not the root of your acceptance; it’s the fruit. As James wrote, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). A true Christian will walk in obedience. Not perfectly, but authentically. Active faith is not quietism, as much as saying growth happens without food. No, you must act; you must feed your soul with the Word, and you must choose righteousness, but you do so because you are alive in Christ. Obedience does not make you more accepted or more alive. I prefer to call it gospel-motivated obedience. It’s the difference between striving to earn and resting because Christ has already earned it. Mable didn’t need a new list of rules; she needed a new motive. Before, she performed for people. Next, she performed for God. What she had not yet learned was how to obey because of love, not to earn love.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15).
And we only love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
That’s the order: He loves us. We love Him, and out of that love, our obedience becomes a joyful expression—an offering to God. This truth brought Mable a wave of peace. God’s pleasure was no longer something for her to chase but something she already had in Christ. Her Bible reading took on a new tone—not a duty to earn, but a delight to enjoy. Her spiritual disciplines were no longer desperate acts for worthiness but deep wells of worship. Her legalism was slowly being replaced by freedom in Christ.
Mable’s story is not unique. It’s the story of anyone who’s grown up measuring worth by performance. But in Christ, we’re invited to stop striving and start resting—to trust God deeply and, from that trust, to obey joyfully.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
