Who are you trying to please?

This is a quote from the Casting Crowns Facebook Page:

"When talking about the song All You've Ever Wanted, Mark Hall says. “We think we need to make things right with God. We think we've got to make him proud again. Not only does it not work, it’s not needed. We’re fighting a battle that’s already won and that’s what this song is about.”
Where do you need to let grace speak louder than your words today?"

That's good stuff, I don't care who you are.  The problem is that there are so few people who have actually let that get down in their spirit and become a part of them.  We are always trying to "get God to come".  It's like He's a wild animal and the bait for Him is us being good enough and living up to His standards.  With that line of thinking, I'm gonna have to call bull crap!  God set up a way of life that was the best way to live.  It wasn't to make us good or anything like that.  Then He did something that humans took WAY out of proportion.  The Law was set up.  What was happening here was something that had never been done before.
In the history of man, there was always something for mankind to worship, the sun, the moon, the earth itself.  Abraham came along and encountered this god named El Shaddai.  El Shaddai made a promise to Abraham and went about through history fulfilling that promise.  Fast forward a few centuries to when God calls Moses out of the burning bush.  Moses, under God's direction, gets the Hebrews out of Egypt.  At this point, God does the very thing that people had been guessing at for centuries: He tells them EXACTLY what it took to get close to Him.  Over time, the Jews took this to mean all types of horrible things.  It came to the point that they would ask the priests if they were considered clean or not.  The priests would say that they were unclean and that they needed a sacrifice.  The problem with that is that the priests were also the ones selling sacrifices to people that didn't have one.
The kicker with all of this is that in Hebrews, Paul writes in Hebrews 10:4, "For it is not possible that the blood of goats and rams can take away sin."  Then why were they doing it?  Later Paul writes that it was put into effect so that they could appease their own conscience.  They needed something to do as an act of worship.
"But Brian, the Bible also says that there had to be a price paid for our sins."  Yes, that's true.  The price was paid.  It was paid on the cross at Calvary.  However that was just an earthly representation of what happened from the beginning.  Revelation refers to The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  The Jews were very figurative people in their writing and speaking.  I say that to set up some things that are hidden in Genesis.  Genesis 2:11 talks about a river named Pishon going through a land named Havilah.  The hidden thing here is that Pishon means Hope, and Havilah means suffering.  The verse also makes mention of gold being in the riverbed.  When you add gold to water, the water turns blood red.  It is done in stained glass, why do you think stained glass is so expensive?  Therefore, the river turned blood red.  The imagery basically says that hope flows through suffering because of the blood.  The Talmud even said that Adam and Eve soaked their feet in the river Pishon for 40 days after getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
Now to the greatest revelation about Genesis that I have ever had.  Hebrew people write in a form called reverse concentric symmetry.  When Americans talk, we make point A, point B, and then point C, then D is the main point.  Jews do the same except that they back out of the point with parallel statements.  A+B+C=D=C+B+A  This is a picture of the theology behind a menorah which is taken from Isaiah 11:2.  With all that being said, take a look at Gen 1.  There are only seven words in this verse so it is really easy to see this taking place.  Count down to the fourth word, that word is the main point.  See that there is no corresponding translation for it to English.  That's because the letters do not mean anything.  Its simply Aleph and Tav.  The first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  For centuries, scholars tried to figure out what this meant.  It wasn't until John's letter came from the Island of Patmos that they saw a statement by Jesus in John's vision.  Jesus said from the horse, I am the Alpha and the Omega.  In Hebrew, He was saying I am the Aleph and the Tav.  Therefore the main point of Genesis 1:1 is Jesus Christ, Himself.
What does this have to do with Mark Hall's statement earlier?  ALOT actually.  God put into place everything that we needed to be ok with Him.  The price was paid from the foundation of the world.  Look back at the river Pishon.  The picture of gold to them was "the one that brings us substance for survival brings it to us in the House of God."  The whole picture of the word and the fact that the river was blood red says, "Behold, the one who brings us substance for survival brings it to us in the House of God through a river of blood."  The price has been paid.  You cannot do anything to make God love you more or less.  You cannot do anything to out perform His grace.  He has paid the price, you are free.  How about lets show the world what that freedom looks like.  That is the only way that we will ever see true happiness in our corrupt world.  That is, to walk in the dust of our Rabbi.

Grace and Peace be with you always.