How to Live to Please God

1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 NKJV

“1Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; 2for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

Have you ever noticed how much what is being taught here is being stressed throughout the New Testament Scriptures, but how it is not being stressed much at all in the majority of institutional “churches,” which are partnered with the government and with the world (via being incorporated under the state)? At least that appears to be the situation here in the USA. Even though Jesus taught it, and Paul and the other apostles taught it, so many have gone away from this kind of teaching in order to appease human flesh.

I have heard pastors say, “We don’t have to do anything to please God because God is already pleased with us if we believe in Jesus.” And so many are teaching that “we don’t have to repent of our sins, and we don’t have to obey God, for that is ‘works salvation’.” And then they teach God’s grace as though it is a free ride to heaven based off lip service only which they say covers all sin, including deliberate and habitual sin. So many are being taught the grace of God like auto insurance, no repentance required at all.

Paul taught that the grace of God, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s return. And Jesus Christ taught that if anyone would come after him, he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin and to self), and follow him in walks of obedience to his commands. And both Jesus and Paul taught that if sin is what we practice, and not obedience, that we will not inherit eternal life with God.

[Titus 2:11-14; Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23; Romans 6:1-23]

God’s Will, Your Sanctification

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 NKJV

“3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; 4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. 7For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. 8Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

And what is sanctification? It is purification, purity, and holiness, i.e. the process of advancing in holiness. It is the believer in Christ being progressively transformed by the Lord into his likeness (his nature, his character). And to be holy is to be separate, unlike the world, because we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, by faith in Jesus Christ, as we cooperate fully with God and with his work of grace in our lives. It is the process of our salvation with us dying to sin and obeying God, in practice.

So much of what is called “church” today is not only pacifying people who claim faith in Jesus Christ in their deliberate and habitual sins, but many are opening the door wide to invite into their gatherings and to include in the “body of Christ” the ungodly and the immoral and those of deliberate sexual deviancy (perversion), which then engages the twisting of the teachings of the gospel of Christ and of God’s design and purpose and will for us who are his creation, and in order to include and to embrace what is opposed to God.

Now, I am not saying that we should be mean or hateful or nasty to anyone no matter who they are or how they are living. We should love all people, no matter who they are. We should treat all people with kindness and with compassion. And we should pray for people to turn from their sins and to obey God and to follow Jesus. But we should not knowingly be inviting (welcoming) sin into the gatherings of “the church” and embracing and coddling what Jesus taught should have no part in our lives at all.

For this is the will of God that sin should no longer have mastery over our lives and that we should abstain from all which is immoral. For God did not call us to uncleanness but to holiness, to live morally pure, upright, and honest lives in faithful obedience to our Lord. And we are to be in the business of cleansing the body of Christ from all that is immoral so that the body won’t get infected and it destroy the whole body (see 1 Corinthians 5:1-13). Sadly, I believe the opposite of that is what is happening mostly.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Living Water

Based off Various Scriptures
An Original Work / November 21, 2013
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

My people have forsaken Me,
Their Savior, who died on a tree;
Made idols, and they worshipped them;
So empty, they will ne’er fulfill.

Lord, You are the hope of Your chosen ones.
Those who turn away from You will be shamed;
The Spring of Living Water left behind.

Living Water satisfies.

The thirsty, let them come and drink;
Believe in Jesus as their King;
The gift of Jesus given them,
So they will never thirst again.

Indeed, the Living Water flows within.
It springs up like a fountain cleansing sin.
Eternal life in heaven promised them.

Living Water glorifies.

Oh people, won’t you come to Him?
Obey Him and repent of sin.
Let Jesus come and live within.
Surrender all your life to Him.

My people, won’t you turn your hearts to Me?
Forsake your idols and then you’ll be free.
Won’t you come now to Me on bended knee?

Living Water sanctifies.

Video Recording of written devotional

How You Ought to Walk
An Original Work / June 28, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love