Living to Please God | English Devotion | NHFCSG

1 Thess 4:1-8

Living to Please God

The apostle reminds the Thessalonians of the clear instructions he gave on how to live to please God. While Paul was thankful for the growth he saw in the Thessalonians, but still desired for them to more in a walk that would please God.

This is not just Paul's advice as a religious leader. These are the words and desires of our Lord Jesus himself.

#1 The will of God is your sanctification

 Some think it is an experience of cleansing and commitment entered once for all. Once they have been washed, they feel, everything is fine. 

The idea behind sanctification is to be set apart, and God wants us set apart from a godless culture 

This means its never finished until we cross over to eternity. 

The word sanctification is almost the same as the word that is translated holiness in this passage. It comes from the same root. The good English word wholeness, which also derives from the same root. 

 Everybody wants to be a whole person.

Psalm 29:2 speaks about the beauty of holiness. It is the inner attractiveness that is evident outside when someone begins to function inwardly as he or she was intended.

God designed beautiful people. And not merely outwardly beautiful people, but inwardly beautiful people. 

He is more interested in making admirable, trustworthy, strong, loving, compassionate people. That is what God calls wholeness, and that is his will for you. 

 

#2 Moral Purity 

Paul says about such wholeness is that it includes moral purity.  To abstain from immorality. 

Moral purity is part of wholeness.

one cannot be a whole person if indulged in sexual immorality. Words like immorality do not seem to register with many people.

Those who do not know God do not have the spiritual resources to walk pure before the Lord; but Christians do. Therefore, we should live differently than those who do not know God.

When we are sexually immoral, we take advantage of and defraud others and we cheat them in greater ways than we can imagine.

1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 

So to "flee immorality" means to have none of those things going on in your life. 

#3 Be Restored 

If, even as a Christian, we might have messed up, the Word of God makes very clear that we can be restored. 

If we acknowledge that we have done wrong and accept God's forgiveness through Christ. You will be whole again. 

What glorious, good news that is! In his instructions to these Christians in Thessalonica, Paul had given them two major steps to achieve moral purity. 

If you are serious about being a whole person, about wanting to find the wholeness, the inner beauty that God provides for you, start walking in these two steps today. 

The first one is, learn to control your own body. 

 The second on is that you must no longer let your own desires take first priority in life

Dear Brother and Sister

You are not your own (1 Corinthians 6:19,20) you no longer belong to yourself. You must no longer let your own desires take priority in life. 

You are bought with a price. Jesus died on your behalf, in your place. You belong to him

He has invaded our being by the Holy Spirit, and the purpose of our lives has been dramatically transformed. We are to live no longer for ourselves but for him who died for us and was raised again from the dead.

 

Let us pray:

Dear God, help us restore our priority, morality and help us to live a life of wholeness. Holy spirit invade our hearts today. In Jesus Name. Amen.