Live Your Life to Please God

Colossians 1:10-12 says "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, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." What an amazing prayer Paul had for the Colossians! Oh to live a life worthy of the Lord! Oh to please Him in every way! I think that is the desire of every Christian, but we don't always feel like we measure up to doing that. Paul listed the things we should do in order to achieve this.

1) Bear fruit in every good work. If we have a bad attitude while doing something, then there is a good chance we won't bear fruit. If we are doing good works for all the wrong reasons (to be noticed, to be praised) or if we expect to be rewarded for the good we do, then we won't be bearing good fruit. We should do whatever God tells us to do and have a good attitude about it. We shouldn't expect a reward here on earth. We should do things simply so that others can see Christ in us.

2) Grow in the knowledge of God. Daily devotions are vital! God is pleased when we read our Bible and pray each day. Why? He enjoys when we spend time with Him! He wants to be able to teach us new things, but He needs us to read our Bible so that He can speak to us through it. He wants to talk to us on a daily basis, but He can't do that if we aren't willing to talk to Him and listen to Him.

3) Be strengthened by God's power. We are so much stronger when we turn to God and seek to do things in His power than when we try to do things on our own. It's amazing how much more we can accomplish when we know He is with us and will help us do whatever it is we are called to do.

4) Have great endurance and patience. When we know God is with us, we should know there is nothing we can't do. Life gets difficult at times, but we need to keep our eyes on the finish line and press on! We should never give up when life gets hard or we feel that God isn't answering our prayers. We need to have endurance and just keep going because we have the assurance that God is with us and helping us. We need to have patience when God doesn't answer our prayers right away because we know that He will answer them in His time and in His perfect will. He knows what is best and we just need to keep having faith in Him and trust Him.

5) Joyfully give thanks God always. Yes, life can be hard; but we always have a reason to be joyful and give thanks to God. We have been promised eternal life! We have an inheritance waiting for us! We will see Christ one glorious day! It may be hard to be thankful when you are struggling with an illness or loss of a loved one, but you need to remember that this world is not your home! When you focus on all that God has done for you as well as the promises of all that awaits you, you won't be able to help being joyful and finding reasons to give thanks to God.

In John 16:33 Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus didn't say we might have trouble. He said we WILL have trouble. There is sin in this world and satan is very real. Satan is always trying to discourage people and draw them away from Christ. Christians aren't promised never to go through difficult times. Immediately after Jesus told the disciples that they would have trouble, He said "But take heart!" Nowadays people would probably say "Cheer up!" or "Don't worry!" Why? Because Jesus has overcome the world! Jesus is always with us, in the good times and the bad. We know when our life here on earth is over, we have the promise of heaven waiting for us because of what He did on the cross. We have no reason to be afraid of the difficult times because we know God will always be there and will never leaves us or forsake us.