This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Do you know how to make God happy? What are the various acts of worship that please God?
In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren identifies and explains five practical acts of worship that bring pleasure to God and connect you to him. They bring you joy, as well.
Read more to learn how to make God happy with these five acts of worship.
How to Make God Happy With Acts of Worship
There are five acts of worship that—when practiced with accuracy, authenticity, thoughtfulness, and practicality—make God happy.
Act of Worship #1: Love Him Absolutely
God’s greatest desire is for you to love him in the same way that he loves you. Imagine your relationship with your closest and most loyal friend. You probably stay in regular contact with this friend, know everything about her, trust her completely, and allow her to know everything about you.
God wants this type of close friendship with you, and nothing would bring him more happiness than your efforts to know and love everything about him—in this sense, your friendship is a form of worship. There are six ways you can establish and maintain your friendship with God.
1) Have Ongoing Conversations
It’s essential to stay in regular contact with God—only speaking to him once a week at church isn’t enough to create a close friendship.
Like many people, you’re probably in close contact with your best friend, texting her daily with updates on things happening in your life, thoughts you have, or questions about her day. Your communication with God should be a similar stream of consciousness.
- Include God in everything you do, every thought that crosses your mind, and every conversation you have—think of your conversations with him less as prayers and more as ongoing texts.
You don’t need to be alone to spend time with God or talk to him—he’s with you everywhere, as long as you keep his presence in your mind and invite him to be part of whatever you’re doing, whether it be grocery shopping, driving to work, or meeting with a client.
- If you have trouble remembering to feel his presence and keep an ongoing conversation, you can try writing reminders on sticky notes and putting them in high-visibility places, or set an alarm on your phone to ping you every hour with a reminder.
2) Meditate on His Word
Part of truly knowing God is knowing what he thinks and feels—and there’s no better place to find this information than his Word. You can’t read the Bible all day in the same way you can talk to God all day. You can, however, think about Scripture.
- Every week or so, select a few verses that you’d like to meditate on over the week. At regular intervals when you have a moment to think, just repeat these verses in your mind.
When you turn over verses in your mind repeatedly, you often find truths and lessons in them that you hadn’t noticed before—in this way, God is able to speak to you. He shares his secrets and his knowledge, allowing you to understand him fully as a friend would.
3) Voice Your Displeasure and Doubt
Honesty is one of the foundational elements of any solid friendship, so it’s not surprising that God desires your total honesty. This means that he’ll not only tolerate you voicing displeasure with him, but he’ll also encourage it and listen to it.
- Even in the Bible, those who were closest to God regularly spoke to him in anger—they argued with him, doubted him, accused him, and shouted at him.
God doesn’t mind it when you express your anger, because it’s the first step to becoming closer to him. When you’re angry with God, it’s usually because you don’t understand that everything he does is in your best interest. Eventually, you’ll understand the reason for your suffering, but for now, it’s just important to get it off your chest. By doing so, you put your emotions out in the open where they can cool off, instead of bottling them up and letting resentment simmer. It’s impossible to become best friends with God if you resent him.
- If you need help articulating your displeasure, you can turn to the book of Psalms, which God gave us as “guidelines” for expressing emotion—while plenty of them are full of praise, many are full of complaints, fears, and doubts.
4) Act With Faith
If your best friend tells you to do something you don’t understand or are afraid of, you’d probably question her. Here, your friendship with God differs—when God tells you to act, you’re expected to obey him in total trust and faith. This is a signal of intimacy because it proves that you love God, trust him, and want to do as he says as a demonstration of your gratitude.
- God’s requests can take many forms. He may ask you to share what you have, offer forgiveness to someone who’s hurt you, or reach out to someone who may reject you.
5) Share His Values
You care about what’s important to your best friend, and vice versa. When you become friends with God, the same thing will happen—you’ll value the same things he does.
- What God cares about most is that all of his children accept him and love him. The closer you become to God, the more you’ll start to care about the faith and salvation of those around you as he does.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Purpose Driven Life summary :
- The meaning of life from a Christian perspective
- The five purposes that you were created by God to fulfill
- How to find the unique service you were made for
