Pleasing in Every Way

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ...." Colossians 1:9--10

There is purpose to all this "knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives," we now come to the "so that...". I think it would be quite sufficient, just to know deeply and fully the will of our Lord Jesus in the wisdom and understanding from the Spirit. However, in our Lord, all things are dimensional and build into something beyond themselves. In other words, every thing has a purpose to accomplish in our lives. Grace teaching us to live holy lives (Titus 2:11-12) has great purpose in us and in the Kingdom. Everything God does simply expands exponentially into life in all directions - in us and in the Kingdom.

So here the purpose of empowering a life like His - a worthy life that pleases the Lord at every turn. We please the Lord because we live in Him. We are His and pleasing because we are. However, there is a dimension (there is that word again) of pleasing Him that is born in and because of relationship. When I married my husband (nearly 51 years ago) I was very pleasing to him. Within that relationship of marriage, I have learned what really pleases him. He loves my home cooked meals, but is exceedingly pleased with a cherry pie to top it off. It doesn't matter than neither of us need to eat such, but you get the point.

In Christ, we begin from a point of favor, being pleasing. Then we move within that acceptance and love - to discover more of Him and therefore in this full knowledge, wisdom and understanding we are able to please Him in ways we never dreamed before. Our lives began to be marked with "worthy," not because of our innate worth, but because of His movement in and through us. This favor brings much more favor. Grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace! Awesome!