please, please the father

The mark of a true believer is one who lives to please the one who purchased their freedom.  We honor father and mother for bringing us into the world, without the Heavenly Father our parents wouldn’t have anything to bring into this world.  Being born of the flesh is a notable event, but we are all conceived in sin and therefore born to be separated from God.  Not everyone knows this but Jesus had to go to hell and back in order to purchase our freedom.  Those who do know this have a moral obligation to be grateful every day of their lives.
 
1 Thessalonians 4:1 We exhort you brothers that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so then you would abound more and more.
 
Pleasing God should be the every day natural expression of the born-again spirit.  The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.  Our flesh does not consider this kind of love, it cannot comprehend anything out of the natural realm.  Our flesh must be trained to trust our spirit, this takes time and persistence.  When Paul said “You ought to know how to walk and please God” he was appealing directly to our spirit.  The spirit of a man is programmed at the new birth to follow its Heavenly Father, the flesh has no interest, there is no allegiance to the spirit.  The Lord put something in this verse that appeals to the flesh: you will abound more and more.  The idea of gaining something appeals to the flesh, now the flesh has a reason to trust the spirit because it expects to gain something.
 
Romans 8:8 They that are in the flesh cannot please God.
 
The flesh totally relies on the five senses to feed it knowledge, it cannot accept things it cannot see.  On account of this the devil takes advantage of us, he helps us doubt the things of God because we can’t see them.  Our soul and spirit are connected for eternity.  Our soul is our mind, will and emotions and it always takes the side of our flesh.  The spirit of a man is the life of that man, the spirit must contend with it’s soul and it’s   flesh.  The flesh and soul of a man are fearful, they need tangible evidence or they won’t participate in the life of the spirit.  The flesh of man is grateful for only the natural things it receives, it has no concept of eternal life, it is always trying to preserve itself. 
 
Romans 15:3 Even Christ didn’t live to please Himself.  As the Scriptures say, the insults of those who insult you, O God have fallen on Me.
 
  Jesus is our example of a man who lived to please God, He put God’s will before His own.  God’s will for Jesus was to go to the cross and bear the sin of all mankind, whether they appreciated it or not.  Those who believe and appreciate His sacrifice live to please the Father as Jesus did, but they die to self not for the world.  Jesus just wants us to be grateful to the Father for sending Him to reconnect us.  Perhaps we Christians need to take the time and research what Jesus went through in order to save us.  Maybe we are not grateful because we don’t know anything to be grateful for.  It’s very simple, Jesus died so we could live, now let’s please the One who bought us.       

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