A Life Pleasing to God - 1 Thessalonians Series

This devotion is written by Matt O’Reilly from his book, “The Letters to the Thessalonians.” Matt O’Reilly is a contributing author at seedbed.com. We hope you will be encouraged.

1 Thessalonians 4:1–3a NIV “As for other matters, brothers and sisters, 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. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.”

Key Observation. Holiness is God’s will for your life.

Understanding the Word. Most of us want to know God’s plan. We want direction. We want purpose. What’s God’s will for me? If you’ve asked that question, you may be surprised to discover God’s will is the same for everyone. And it’s summed up with one word—sanctification. Sanctification refers to the process of becoming holy. For Paul, everything else is secondary. If you want to know God’s will for your life, start with holy.

If you’re wondering why Paul thinks this way, consider that he grew up immersed in the Old Testament. One passage that fills in the picture is found in Ezekiel 36, which anticipates the day God will rescue his people from exile. How did they get to the point of exile? They had given themselves to sin for so long that God had to do something drastic to get their attention: he allowed foreign powers to conquer them and take them out of their land (vv. 18–19). We’ve already learned from Paul that God never gives up on his people, and that’s Ezekiel’s message too. Ezekiel promised the Hebrew people that God would rescue them. But the plan was not simply to rescue them from foreign captivity; God intended to rescue them from their sin—all of it. After all, sin was the root problem. To do that, God would have to change them from the inside out, give them new hearts. He even promised to give his own Holy Spirit to empower obedience. God will make his people holy. And here’s the reason: “the nations shall know that I am the Lord . . . when through you I display my holiness before their eyes” (Ezek. 36:23). Catch that? God’s plan is to show the nations the beauty of his holiness, and the bodies of his people will be the theater where that holiness is enacted.

That means that God must deal with our sin. He must show us the ways our lives aren’t aligned with his character. If we surrender to that work, we get the remarkable privilege of showing God’s holy love to the world. God is faithful. He always does what’s right. He always tells the truth. There’s no duplicity in him. No deceit. He wants those aspects of his character to consistently define the lives of his people. And that’s how God intends to make his character known to every nation on earth, which means holiness is ultimately about mission.

Do you want people to know God’s holy love? Because he wants to show his holy love to other people through you. Think about that. The world will know God is God when his people embody his holy character. That’s his will for all of us. Everything else is secondary.