Do You Live to Please God or People?


Living to Please God

4 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, 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. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
I think we often get confused on this idea of living to please God.  Paul obviously thought it was important for the new Christians in Thessalonica.  In fact he commends them for living a life pleasing to God, and urges them to do so more and more.  This would seem to imply that we can also endeavor to please God in new ways.  So where can this be tricky?  How can it be a slippery slope?
It can become dangerous when we think we have to please God in order for him to accept us.  This leads to a "works mentality" that is constantly trying to do enough to earn God's approval.  We see this in life as well.  People who have an issue of "people pleasing" because they didn't get the approval they needed in their formative years. They find that they never can please others enough.    
I think the sense in which Paul is teaching is that as we realize what God has done for us in Christ and how much He loves us, we want to show our love to God by doing His will.  We want to please God not to get his approval, but because we have his approval.  On the cross we got God's final approval not because of the good things we had done, but because of what Jesus did for us. 
Are you living a life which is pleasing to God?  As you think about what God has done for you does it inspire you to do so more and more? 

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