We all should be desiring to be pleasing to God, in our minds (thoughts) in our hearts (emotions) and in our lives (actions). David was a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22). He desired to please God in everything he did. Why? Did David think God would love him more because he had this desire to please God?

David sought to be pleasing to the Lord because David loved God. Scripture tells us that, "We love, because He first loved us" (1st John 4:19) Before salvation, the question is, "Does God love me?" After salvation the question arises, "Do I love God?"

It's not a 'give and take' relationship with God's love. It's not, "God loves me if I....", but instead it is the faith Christians carry inside our hearts that God loves us no matter what. This knowledge ought to spur us on to gratefulness and the desire to be pleasing to Him.

God showed His great love for us by providing a way back to Him through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (1st John 4:10). We either believe this great love or we don't. I am going to suggest that if one is truly saved, he or she will have a desire to know God more and more. Therefore, a saved person has the desire to read the Bible, to be obedient, to do good works. If there is no desire to do any of these things, I would offer the same suggestion that the Bible offers, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you -- unless indeed you fail the test?" (2 Corinthians 13:5)

One Scripture that keeps coming to my mind is Matthew 25:23. What happens if a person truly is saved, has no desire to read the Bible, obey Him, or do His works ... what happens to those who come into the very presence of Christ? How sad it will be for them not to hear the words, "Well done good and faithful servant." How sad to settle for simply salvation.

The reward for being grateful and faithful is something the Bible does not go into a great deal of explanation about. I have read a wide variety of suggestions, from everything to the reward is being able to stay physically closer to Christ throughout all eternity to mansions being greatly decorated to the amount of crowns one will receive. While I find all these suggestions interesting, I think the rewards given are something we can't even being to comprehend in this earthly plane in our earthly bodies. I think they are so magnificent that we aren't able to understand them.

I do think, though, that these rewards will be a much as an eternal mistake to miss out upon as much as it will be for a person who finds himself or herself in hell and realizes they've missed out upon salvation.

Satan can't take away our salvation, but are we going to let his deceptions trick us into thinking that knowing God, obeying God, and doing His works aren't important? Are we going to allow the devil to steal away our reward?

Do you love God? Obey Him. Do you love God? Learn more about Him by reading the Bible. Do you love God? Do His work.

Remember after Christ was raised from the dead, He was restoring His relationship with Peter, because Peter had denied Him three times before His death on the cross for all of our sins. Christ asked Peter, "Do you love me?" three times. Then Christ told Peter three times to feed His sheep. (John 21:15-17)