I believe that living to please the Lord has to be intentional. I don’t know about you, but I fall short in this area often. I get so caught up in the busy-ness of life that sometimes I forget to take the time to honor the One who gave me this beautiful life I live.

But I don’t want that to be the “norm.”

Ephesians 5:10 (AMP) tells us to “Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord [let your lives be constant proofs of what is most acceptable to Him].”

As we learn the things that please Him, we must be intentional about practicing them. In my first post on Living to Please Him, we talked about how one of the very first steps in pleasing the Lord is to just spend time with Him.

If we want to be strong Christians, we will need to dig into the Word on a regular basis. And we will need to carve out uninterrupted time each day to fellowship with the Lord in prayer. The closer we are to Him, the easier it becomes to please Him.

In fact, I have found that when I don’t discipline myself to be in His presence, I become easily irritated with my family and others. My faith wanes and my feelings take over and can easily overwhelm me if I let them.

But the more I give myself to the Word of God and to prayer, the easier is to do two of the most important things that bring pleasure to the Lord:

(1) Walk in Love

Little children, let us not love [merely] in theory or in speech but in deed and in truth (in practice and in sincerity)… And we receive from Him whatever we ask, because we [watchfully] obey His orders…and habitually practice what is pleasing to Him. ~ 1 John 3:18, 22 (AMP)

and

(2) Walk by Faith

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. ~ Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)

I think that it’s quite interesting to note that our faith won’t even work without love. Faith expresses itself through love.

For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. ~ Galatians 5:6 (MSG)

So no matter what we pray and ask the Lord for, if we are not walking in love towards our husband, children, extended family, friends, church members, or that irritating clerk in the check-out lane, then our faith can’t be expressed. It simply won’t work.

Everything in our lives is intertwined — especially in the spiritual arena.

If we’re living full of the Word of God, if we’re living in continual fellowship with Him, then we will walk in love towards others and our faith will be strong and active.

A woman who lives in the presence of the Lord, who displays His love and kindness to others, and has a strong, vibrant faith life will be extremely pleasing to Him!

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