God's Pleasure in Us

John Piper wrote in an article about how God delights in his people. For those who read or watch Joel Osteen (and like or believe him) this may not seem like a big deal (though it really should). But Piper is fairly famous for trampling over such man-centered views of God in favor of God-centered views. In this article, he writes:

God looks upon his children through the lens of Christ’s imputed righteousness. That means two things: One is that God counts us perfect in Christ. The other is that he can still see us becoming in practice what we are positionally in Christ. The lens of imputation secures our invincible right standing with God. It also warrants God’s delight in our imperfect delight in him. That is, even though we are counted perfectly righteous in Christ, God can still see our actual sinning and the fruit of the Spirit in our life. That is why he can be delighted in us to greater or lesser degrees. We know this because he both reckons us as perfectly righteous (Romans 4:4-6) and disciplines us for sin in our life (1 Corinthians 11:32). Therefore, God’s delight in our delight in him varies in proportion to the affections of our heart, but is possible only because God imputes to us Christ’s perfect righteousness.

This one still stumps me. It feels like the objective,"distant" God is pleased with me positionally. But the personal God who really knows what I am like is not so pleased. Yes he loves me, but does he like me?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the fact that there are not two Gods--a distant objective one, and a personal one--but rather, there is one God who is both pleased and displeased.

As an accountant, I reconcile numbers. I have less success reconciling this. Perhaps this is like the trintity, or the hypostatic union, or the origin of evil--we just don't get to know. Or is it?

Must give more thought here.