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LIVING TO PLEASE GOD

THE DAILY FOUNTAIN DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE OF THE CHURCH OF NIGERIA (ANGLICAN COMMUNION)

DATE: THURSDAY, 11TH MAY, 2023 

TOPIC: LIVING TO PLEASE GOD

TEXT:   1 THESSALONIANS 4: 1-18

1. Finally 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;
2. for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4. that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5.  not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6.  that 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.
7.  For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8.  Therefore he who rejects [this] does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
9.  But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
10.  and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
11.  that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,
12.  that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and [that] you may lack nothing.
13.  But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
14.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive [and] remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16.  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17.  Then we who are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.

MESSAGE: 
The goal of any true Christian is to please God. Paul in his letter to Pastor Timothy said, “No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs, he wants to please his commanding officer” (2 Tim. 2: 4). A Christian is a soldier serving under Jesus who is his commanding officer. Today's passage listed behaviours expected of Christians who wish to please God (vs.3-12).
a. Holiness (vs. 3-8): God is holy and hates all forms of impurity of the mind, spirit and body. Today's reading specifically mentioned total abstinence from sexual immorality which has unfortunately crept into the church today.
b. Love (vs. 9-10): Genuine agape love is the Christian's true identity (John 13: 34-35). Any Christian who does not love, does not know God (1 John 4: 7-8). Unfortunately, this is becoming very rare in the church today.
c. Diligence (vs. 11-12): Hard work pleases God. The Thessalonian believers were admonished to work hard to earn their living. This was also emphasized by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3: 6-12.
d. Eternal hope: Christians should live with eternity in view (vs. 13-18), so that they will not sorrow when death comes as happens to those who do not have hope.


PRAYER: 
May my daily life please You O, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

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