"Our Purpose Is To Please God" - November 30, 2010

Daily Lectionary Readings for November 30, 2010
Psalm 33
Isaiah 1:21-31
1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Luke 20:9-18

1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
"Our purpose is to please God, not people.  He alone examines the motives of our hearts."
Paul is speaking about his motivation which he identifies as pleasing God.  In pleasing God he is sharing good news and speaking hard truths to people.  The good news and the hard truths are both for the good which is why they are pleasing to God.  Paul states that God alone is capable of examining the motives of our hearts.  While this can mean that no other person can really examine our deepest motivations it is also true that this knowledge applies to us as well.  We can tell the story of our motivations to ourselves in ways that are, in fact, not in line with the reality of things.  God made us and God sees into our hearts.  Our purpose is to please God, because not only is God the only one who can examine the motives of our hearts; God alone is also the only one whose desires for our hearts to be pure.  In seeking to please God we come as close as we can to doing the right thing - not because we want to do right, but because God's will for us is invariably right.
If our purpose is to please God, which would seem to be an ideal and worthy purpose then our first task is to discover what pleases God.  Which draws us back again to Scripture and to prayer.  So many things point us in this fundamental direction.  We need to know God.  Our most reliable approach to God is our intentional devotional practices - reading Scripture, worshipping, praying.  Seeking what is pleasing to God so that we may live towards that purpose.