The Proper Aim of a Christian's Life # 1

The Proper Aim of a Christian's Life # 1

"Finally, brothers, 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!" (1 Thess. 4:1).

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do - do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10).

Every servant should habitually aim to please his Master.

Every wife should habitually aim to please her husband.

Every child should habitually aim to please his father.

But every Christian is the Lord's servant, the Lamb's bride, the child of God; therefore his daily, hourly aim, should be to please God. He should never lose sight of this for one hour - but in every place, in every circumstance, in every undertaking, ask, "Will this be pleasing to God?"

God is pleased or displeased with every thought we think, with every word we speak, with every action we perform, with every emotion we feel.

Perhaps we do not sufficiently realize this. We think, speak, feel, and act - without ever considering whether we are pleasing God, or not. But this ought not to be, for He gave us our being, redeemed us from sin and damnation, called us by His grace, and has blessed us with innumerable and interminable blessings - and all that we may glorify Him! And how can we glorify Him but by habitually aiming to please Him? If I forget or lose sight of this, I forget and lose sight of the principal end of my being, and well-being.

What makes Heaven so happy? Just this - all there keep the eye and heart intently fixed upon this one thing - pleasing God. What would make us permanently and solidly happy on earth? Only this - to aim always and in everything to please God. Ah! if we did this, we would have few cares, few fears, and no falls!

The bosom would be a stranger to anxiety, and the heart to foreboding. The Saviour's prayer which He taught His disciples would be in a great measure answered, "Your will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven."

Well, shall we go on as we have done - or shall we seek a change? We have not, perhaps, in everything, and at all times, sought principally t please God. But Paul says, "You ought to please God!"

Both reason and revelation unite in saying that we - as believers in Jesus, as partakers of the grace of God, as those who are absolutely dependent on God, who are so richly supplied by God, who are so infinitely indebted to God, and who are expecting to receive a crown and kingdom from God - ought in everything to endeavor to please God!

The precepts of His Word direct us how we may do this, and the Holy Spirit is ready to help our infirmities - if we heartily desire and fervently ask Him.

Let each of us, then, in future, propose that the end of my life, is to please God. And let us often, very often, ask in reference to particular points, "Is this pleasing to God?" For instance, the manner in which I employ my spare time - the amount of time I give to sleep, to recreation, to entertainment. Many Christians seem never to think whether the way in which they spend their time is pleasing to God or not. If they did, would they ever go to some entertainments, or indulge in certain pleasures? Would the world have so much of their time, and the prayer closet so little? How much time is wasted in frivolous ways, which are neither conducive to the health of the body, nor calculated to promote the spirituality of the mind.

How many squander their money on dress, ornaments, or delicacies for the body - who never relieve the poor, or supply the needs of the sick, or contribute toe establish God's cause in the world; or if they do so at all, it is not in due proportion to their means. The pence are given to the Lord - the pounds are spent in the gratification of SELF!

If, when I am going to lay out money in ornaments or dress, or indulgences for the table, I was to ask, "Is this pleasing God?" - would it not check my lavish expenditure? Would it not often change the course in which my money flows?

~James Smith~

(continued with # 2)