For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13
Living to please God is easy to talk about but very difficult to live out. None of us can live to please God by our own strength.
Jesus gave us the guide for how to live to please God. In the Sermon on the Mount, He told us to approach God with a hunger and thirst for righteousness. That is in reference to our passion for God.
To please God, we must intensely desire Him as the source of our sustenance and strength. Jesus also told us to mourn for our sins and turn away with vehemence from anything that offends God.
We cannot please God and still remain comfortable with sin in our lives. The person who loves God, must hate sin. It is important to remember that the one who gives us the desire to live to please God is the Lord Himself.
He is the one who gives us the hunger and thirst for righteousness. Because He is the one who gives us the desire, we must trust Him to give us the grace to live out the desire.
The paradox of our walk with God is this: God wants us to desire Him above all else yet we must also know that we cannot please Him by our own strength.
No matter how intensely we desire to please Him, we cannot do it by ourselves. Once we settle with this paradox, we place ourselves on the right path for a walk with God that is real and fulfilling.
The desire for God must be in our hearts but the power to live for God is from the Holy Spirit. We give Him our desires and He gives us the power to do the things that our hearts passionately longs for.
The desire for God must be in our hearts but the power to live for God is from the Holy Spirit. We give Him our desires and He gives us the power to do the things that our hearts passionately longs for.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, give me the power to live to please God.
Scriptural Reading: Philippians 2:12-18
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