As a Christian, we should love God more than anything else in the world. God made us to love us and He wants a relationship with us. He doesn’t really want our sacrifices, He wants our love.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment. (Mark 12:30). This is the scripture to live by. As Christian, we must make it the greatest objective of our lives.
Apart from loving God, trusting God completely is an act of worship which pleases God. Remember that in the bible story of Noah, he trusted and obeyed God completely when God asked him to build an ark in the middle of dry land that would save him and the animals. A total of 120 years was needed to build to ark. For sure he should have endured a lot of criticism because there was no sign of rain which caused flood during that period. Yet He kept on believing and trusting God.
Obedience is another act of worship which please God. When we obey God, we don’t question Him. If God tell us to do something, we should obey wholeheartedly. Understanding may come later. Sometimes we just can’t understand some commands until we obey them first. As pastor Rick Warren said in his book The Purpose Driven Life, obedience unlocks understanding. Wholehearted obedience means that we obey and do something God asks us to do joyfully and enthusiastically.
God is pleased when we offer thanks and praises to Him continually. Because of what Jesus has done for us (dying on the cross for our sins and resurrected to defeat the dominion of sins on our lives), we are told to give thanks and praises to God as sacrifices instead of offering animals like what the Jewish priests did in the old time. As pointed out by Pastor Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life, worship works both ways. We enjoy what God has done for us. When we express that enjoyment to God, it brings Him joy which in turn increases our joy too! This is joy unspeakable. So, if you want more joy in your life, worship God always. Give thanks and praise to Him continually.
God gives each of us our unique set of abilities. God might have given you the abilities to sing, play tennis, run, analyse something, etc. What we have to do in order to please God is by using what God has given us. Every activity, except sin, can be done to please God if we do it with an attitude of praise. God loves our uniqueness. He’d love to see we use what He has given us. So, we should stop trying to be somebody else. Because if we do, it means we are rejecting God’s wisdom in creating us.
If you think you are not living your life pleasing God, instead you are always trying hard to please everyone you met, then recognising it as something that you want to stop to do is the first step towards living a fulfilling and joyful life.
Inspired by / ideas taken from the book of The Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Rick Warren. A copy of the book can be purchased by clicking the link below.
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