Cross, crabbed, morose natures do not please the Lord. Unkind husbands, fractious wives, rebellious children, and domineering parents are far from pleasing him. God cannot smile upon oppression, craftiness, greed, or the grinding of the poor. Neither is “covetousness, which is idolatry,” pleasing with God. He that is covetous, angers the great Giver of all good, whose liberal soul cannot endure churls and misers. The like is true of all worldliness; the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, these are things which God condemns; in them he hath no pleasure whatsoever.
O ye believers, I pray ye purge yourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, and as for the deeds of darkness, have no fellowship with them, but rather reprove them. Come ye out from among them, be ye separate, touch not the unclean thing, and then will you please your heavenly Father.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Christian's Motto," delivered March 22, 1874. Image by Paul Bica on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
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