Introduction, knowing how to please God is vital because it is the core purpose why all things, including humanity, were created.
The Bible says God created all things for His pleasure (Revelation 4: 11), and In Genesis 1: 31, it is recorded that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…”
The Hebrew word for good here is ‘tob’ meaning good in the pragmatic sense, as in something functional, something working towards meeting its real purpose.
This means all God had created, including humanity, fulfilled its purpose, and knew how to please God, and thus they were good. But then Adam sinned, and everything went out of balance; humanity lost that ability to please God, and humanity lost that sense of purpose.
In Romans 12: 5 – 15, the Bible vividly describes that sin and chaos came into the world through one man Adam, the same way righteousness and stability have come into the world through another, that is, the person of Christ.
So in Christ, we now have a sense of purpose, and we repossess the ability to start living to please God. We become new creatures that chase to serve and yearn to know how to please God. We can now know how to please God through faith, which is the central teaching of Christianity.
The core purpose and all there is to the Christian faith is knowing how to please God. It is the reason why God incarnated and took human form in the person of Christ (the God-man), to die and reconcile us back to himself, and to show us the right way on how to please God in our daily life, laying down precepts and principles that will aid us to know how to live a life to please God.
All of Christ’s day on earth, everything He did was channeled toward pleasing God. On one occasion, when He was hungry, and His disciples asked Him to eat, His reply was, “my food is to do the will of my Father in Heaven” (John 4: 27 – 34).
Christ didn’t just die to satisfy the price for all our sins alone, but during His time here on earth, He taught and lived the perfect life that pleased God.
Hence his lifestyle became the yardstick on how to please God. Therefore, to know how to please God as a woman, or how to please God and not man, is by following Christ’s benchmark in the scriptures. Search for Bible verses on how to please God, and apply all of them to our daily living.
What Does It Mean To Please God?
To know how to please God means taking actions or living a lifestyle deeply rooted in faith in God, living with the consciousness that God exists and reigns as supreme Lord overall.
Hebrew 11: 6 (NIV) “And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists…” When faith in God influences the choices and decisions that we make in our daily living, it is then that our actions are pleasing to God.
The faith that pleases God is not the faith to accomplish material vain things. It is not using faith as the means to an end of a personal gain, no! But instead, it is faith in the truth, faith in the truth of God’s word, and faith in Christ Jesus.
The faith that brings about the soul’s salvation and makes it pleasing before God, which is how to please God through faith.
How to please God should be our supreme ultimate goal as believers.
It should be intrinsic to our spiritual living, a lifestyle that cuts across every facet of our daily living. It goes deep beyond the visible surface and involves our hearts’ most profound intent, content, and meditations.
The Psalmist says in Psalm 19: 14 (NIV), “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight…” The Psalmist clearly understood that pleasing God is not just a thing on the façade or word of mouth, but it involves the deepest thoughts of our hearts.
Our intentions should be pure and void of any form of selfishness, we should have a heart that pleases God, and our ultimate aim should be how to please God, and not to please God for some personal gain that is consequential to pleasing Him.
At the forefront of whatever we do should be how to please God, and we should hunger and thirst for it, just as a Deer pants for water.
The Need To Please God
Irrespective that God created us to please Him, the need to know how to please God is on us and not on God.
The primary purpose we were created is to please God, which can only be truly fulfilled when we live our life on focus on how to please God when we make how to please God in our daily life our number one final goal.
God is the Ultimate Infinite Eternal Being, self-sufficient in all of His ways. So regardless of the choice, we make to please Him or not, it doesn’t add or remove anything from Him.
But instead, it is a disadvantage on our side if we don’t live to please God and an advantage on our side when we live to please Him.
Though we don’t seek to know how to please God for personal gains, but the by-products of knowing how to please God automatically become gains to us. So the need to please God is on us. We are the ones that stand to the rip benefits of pleasing God.
15 Ways To Please God In All Your Doings
1. By Putting All Our Trust And Faith In God
One of the ways to know how to please God is by putting all our trust and faith in God. The Bible says we should trust in the Lord with all our hearts and acknowledge Him in all our ways (Proverbs 3: 3 – 5).
This is simply telling us to cling to God for every form of security we can imagine, let go of our wisdom or understanding of things, let go of our definition of everything, fully trust God’s definition, and follow His laid-out principles.
And doing this is an expression of total dependence on God’s Supreme Sovereign Omniscience and Omnipotence, such an act is of utmost pleasing to God.
2. Seeking The Kingdom Of God First
Haven seen that the core thing to pleasing God is to live a lifestyle of faith, which references God in every choice of actions. One of the ways to express that lifestyle of faith in God is to always deliberately seek God’s interest first in everything we do.
Matthew 6: 33 (NIV) “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness…” this means we should always put God’s will and God’s righteousness first in our lives, and always occupy our time with going after things that pertain to God’s Kingdom and purpose, for these are things that are upright and pleasing to God.
Colossians 3: 1 – 2 (NIV) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
3. To Always Obey God Rather Than Men
To always obey God rather than man is to always put the will of God as the utmost important thing above all. Acts 5: 29 (NIV) “Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!” This was after they were being flogged for preaching the gospel, they were asked not to preach again.
So they were now allowed to defend themselves, and they gave us a reply. As believers, if we want to please God truly, we must desire how to please God and not man.
Our story will not be like those of Peter and other Apostles, but certainly, there must come a time in our spiritual journey where we’ll be caught in the middle to obey God or man.
We must always choose to obey God if we want to please Him. We shouldn’t have any other choice in mind but rather always obey God in times like this.
4. Present Your Bodies As A Living Sacrifice
Romans 12: 1 (NIV) “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, because of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship.”
We were mare sinners before this time, who long to please the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5: 19 – 21 (NIV) The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like….”
But when we now follow Christ, we are to be like Him, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. This means to be dead to the sinful nature and be alive in Christ, all to glorify God. To separate ourselves from the things that
will spark our lustful desires and cling to the things that will spark our Spiritual man. To yield to the spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and work through us to present Christ to the world. It is more like yielding to spirit to manifest the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5: 22 -23). Doing this means we have put God’s will first, and this will be pleasing to God.
5. When We Preach The Gospel With Our Lifestyle
If we desire to know how to please God, one of the things that we must do is evangelism. To evangelize is to proclaim the good news, to preach the gospel to people. But in this case, it goes beyond word of mouth, it is more like practical living.
We ought to practice what we preach. James 2: 26 (NIV) “As the body without the spirit is dead, faith without deeds is dead.” If we say, we have faith in God, the faith that enables us to receive salvation, the faith that makes the soul pleasing to God.
Then it ought to be practical in our lives. And this practice is what now becomes us evangelizing with our lifestyle. Philippians 2: 12-13 (NIV) ‘…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” These are acts of faith that are upright and will please God.
6. Living A Life That Will Not Quench Holy Spirit
We are warned in the scriptures not to grieve (Ephesians 4: 30) nor quench (1Thesselonian 5: 19) the Spirit with our actions. At the time of conversion, the Holy Spirit comes and takes residence in us, making our body the temple of God (1Corinthians 6: 19).
We are expected to live a sanctified holy life, a lifestyle separated from the world’s norms and ways. To do this, we must yield to the Spirit as He resides in us and not follow our previous way of life before we come into Christ.
If we continue in sin after we might have received Christ, that is when we grieve and quench the Spirit. But if we continue to yield to the Spirit as it burns in us, our lifestyle will automatically be pleasing to God.
7. Living A Life Of Gratitude To God
As earlier said, the core element to know how to please God is to have faith in God, and to have faith in God also means always to trust God no matter the circumstance we find ourselves.
We must always still trust in the supreme will of God, believing that God is very much aware of it and still allowing it to come to be in our life. So we should remain grateful and show gratitude to God in every circumstance we find ourselves 1Thessallonian 5: 18.
Ingratitude can cause us to make decisions that are not faith-based, and such decisions are not pleasing to God. But choosing to show gratitude to God in the challenging times means we have faith in God to see and carry us through the challenges.
8. When We Continually Grow In Grace
2 Peter 3: 18 (NIV) “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” To continually grow in grace means to grow in the knowledge of the word of God, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
This means knowing God’s word and knowing how to apply that knowledge to spiritual living. To take it further, it means to be influenced by the understanding of the word of God, to live a lifestyle based on the knowledge of God’s word.
For instance, the scriptures command that we should be Holy because our God is Holy. The information about this command is knowledge.
Allowing this command to influence your decision to live a different lifestyle that does not follow the everyday norms of the world because you have faith in God is called wisdom and spiritual understanding. And that is what helps us to grow in grace continually, and this is one of the ways to know how to please God.
9. To See Christ As Lord Over All
1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord….” To sanctify Christ as Lord in the heart is to live a life with the understanding that Christ is not just Lord over your life, but He is also Lord over all, so no matter the challenges life will bring, depending on the Lordship of Christ will see you through.
For example, we face different life challenges daily, and most times, we are tempted to give in to fear and make wrong decisions that are not faith-based.
But if Christ is sanctified as Lord in our hearts, we won’t give in to worry, and we’ll always trust God to see us through. Hence we’ll always make faith-based decisions, and faith is the essential factor in pleasing God. Thus our choices will always be focused on how to please God.
10. Abstain From All Appearance Of Evil
1 Thessalonians 5: 22 (NIV) “Avoid every kind of evil.” We cannot live a life to please God unless we begin to decline those things or stay off situations that will cause us to fall into sin. Therefore, abstaining from all appearance of evil is not an option, but it is a command that must be carefully obeyed.
And to obey this command, we must build a guard around our conscience. A guard that is a higher standard of morals, deeply rooted in the word of God, and far from the everyday norm of the world.
This will help us stay focused and be highly alert to abstain from situations that will cause us to fall into sin, and this will help us on how to please God.
11. When We Keep Resisting The Devil
James 4:7 (NIV) “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” We can’t resist the Devil on our own, and our flesh is weak; hence we must submit to God to draw strength to resist the Devil.
Summiting to God also means acknowledging His Lordship over your life, so we must then follow His precepts when summiting to Him. It is by abiding by His principles we can now resist the Devil.
To be more practical, our canal nature, when grieved, will always want to retaliate. But the Bible, God’s precepts, teaches endurance and forgiveness. If we follow our carnal nature, we are to retaliate, because that is what it wants, and we do not have the power to say no.
So the necessary thing to do is to submit to God’s precepts and forgive. By doing this, we live a life that will burn the desire on how to please God.
12. To Not To Be Yoked With Or Love The World
1 John 2: 15-17 (NIV) “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Everything in the world-the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does come not from the Father but from the world.
” The ways of the world are opposite the way of God. The world is full of selfishness; everyone is focused on their wants, and people in the world will go the extra mile to achieve their personal selfish, lustful goals, and it is the popular norm.
So when we get yoked and crave after what the world yearns for, we get trapped in their lifestyle of lustful pleasures of sin. We are not to follow this path if we seek to live a life that will be focused on how to please God.
13. To Hold On The What We Believe, Without Wavering
Hebrews 10:23 (NIV) “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” The hope we profess as believers is the glorious hope, a world without end to come after this present world.
So if we are steadfast with the profession of our faith without wavering, we’ll take faith-based decisions and focus on the things above.
We’ll live our lives in that mental state of the hereafter and not the now. And such a faith-based lifestyle focused on the afterlife is a life that pleases God.
14. Casting All Your Care And Fears Upon God
We often worry and care so much about what tomorrow will bring. We worry about the challenges we face in our everyday life.
We put our minds so much on these challenges that it ends up getting doubts in our hearts, and in the long run, we begin to be ungrateful to God.
Any act of ungratefulness means we begin to attack our faith in God, and without faith, it is impossible to please God.
The Bible commands us in 1Peter 5: 7 (NIV), “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
By casting all our cares on God, it means we depend on God, we rely on His power to see us through, and this is what God wants us to do, trust Him with all our worries and watch Him do it His way.
15. To Be kind To Another, Tenderhearted, Forgiving One Another
To be kind to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one of what proves that we are believers. It is the fruit of the Spirit that only one who the Spirit leads can manifest, and it is one of the ways to on how to please God.
Ephesians 4:32 (NIV) “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” We obeying this command will cause us to be like Christ, and Christ is the benchmark to pleasing God, so when we do this, we are directly doing what will please God.
Conclusion
In today’s society, where evil is the norm of the day and righteous living is mocked and abused, living to please God seems to be one of the impossible things today.
But if our daily choices are influenced by faith in the Supremacy of God and the finished work of Christ, we’ll practically live every minute of our lives to please God without struggling or falling prey to the antiques of the world.
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