God knows all things:
O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it. (2 Nephi 9:20)
Included in his knowledge is our entire range of potential experience:
And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam. (2 Nephi 9:21)
Having ascended into heaven, having the bowels of mercy; being filled with compassion towards the children of men; standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice. (Mosiah 15:9)
While we do not comprehend the joy he feels, because it far exceeds anything we have either experienced or imagined, he completely understands our present and potential joy:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend. (Mosiah 4:9)
The greatest joy we can experience is the joy that he feels:
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. (John 15:11)
And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God. (D&C 14:7)
Everything he does is calculated to take us as far towards his joy as possible:
He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world... (2 Nephi 26:24)
God can only experience a fullness of joy if his children partake of the same. This world and everything in it was created to give us an opportunity to obtain more joy: “...men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25) Because how he feels is a result of who he is, God can’t give his glory—his joy or light or love or truth or happiness—to others:
...I will not give my glory unto another. (Isaiah 48:11)
The way God enables others to share his glory is through giving them commandments, showing them how he is, and giving them the opportunity, through faith, to imitate him:
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3)
The pattern of receiving approval through the persistent and iterative application of faith is present in all of God’s creations, not just humans. In the creation, God iteratively instructed each aspect of the physical world we know, approving of it once it had reached its potential through faith in him:
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:18)
Through iteratively obtaining and following God’s instructions, everything finds favor in his sight:
For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. (Proverbs 8:35)
It was Enoch’s consistent and persistent seeking and obeying of God that resulted in his approval by God:
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)
Melchizedek also followed this pattern (see Genesis 14, JST, previously quoted).
We obtain that joy to the extent that we are willing to desire, reason about, and do what leads to it. We will not be forced into greater joy than is justified by the desires, reasons, and actions we choose:
And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received. (D&C 88:32)
The faithful advance through proximate improvement opportunities that lie directly within their understanding. The faithful resist the temptation to “look beyond the mark” by evading the obvious improvements before them in order to feign interest in more advanced changes—changes which will never come while already-obvious opportunities for improvement are ignored:
But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble. (Jacob 4:14)
Most believe God is an arbitrary deity whose favor is fickle. The Lord has made clear that only those who seek him, better learn from him how things really are, and live according to what they learn will obtain improved outcomes, and that those outcomes will only be obtained to the extent this is done. The only way to obtain God’s approval is through the persistent and progressive exercise of faith: “For by [faith] the elders obtained a good report.” (Hebrews 11:2) This “good report” comes iteratively, piece by piece, layer by layer.
Because faith is the means by which God makes you more like he is, you can’t please him without faith:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
God can only be pleased inasmuch as we become like him because he has chosen to make his joy a result of our joy, and we obtain joy only inasmuch as we obtain and follow the instructions he provides to that end.