Living To Please God

“Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more” (1 Thessalonians 4:1).

Paul instructed the Christians at Thessalonica on how to do it. He asks them to do it. He urges them to do it. He tells them to do it more and more.

What is it?

Living to please God.

We need to chew on this for a while. We can live to please God. God can be pleased by the way we are living. The way we live our lives can bring pleasure or delight to our God.  Paul’s ministry included instructing the church about how to live in order to please God.

Shouldn’t that be our purpose in living -- living to please God? Yet so much of our energy is spent in trying to please ourselves. We need this instruction today, just as surely as the Christians at Thessalonica needed it in the early days of the church.

Paul seems to be recapping some of that previous instruction in the verses that follow.  Living to please God means -- controlling your body so that you live as set apart for God rather than in passionate lust (4:3-6), loving each other in the church at Thessalonica and loving even the wider body of Christ throughout Macedonia (4:9-10), living peaceful, quiet lives characterized by a work ethic that wins the respect of outsiders rather than being idle busy-bodies (4:11-12), encouraging one another with the certainty of Jesus’ return (4:13-5:11), respecting spiritual leaders (5:12-13), living in peace (5:13), encouraging, even warning the weak with great patience (5:14), treating others with kindness and grace rather than seeking revenge (5:15), living joyfully (5:16), praying continually (5:17), giving thanks for everything (5:18), letting the Spirit’s fire burn (5:19-22), and allowing God to set you apart for His use (5:23-24).

Other passages shed additional light on how to live a life that pleases God: Hebrews 11:1-6, Romans 5:5-8, 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Romans 12:1, Romans 14, Philippians 4:10-20, and 1 Timothy 5:3-4.

We have been instructed on how to live a life that pleases God. If Paul were here, I think he would ask us and even urge us, as he did the Thessalonians, to do this more and more. May God take delight in the lives we lead.

— Bob Clark

12/6/2005