#DailyDevotion As Christians, We Make It Our Aim To Please Christ

2 Cor. 5:8-10 ⁸We are confident and prefer to live away from this body and to live with the Lord. ⁹Now, whether we live here or move out, we try hard to please Him. ¹⁰We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, each to receive according to what he has done with his life, whether he has used it for good or evil.

“We are confident and prefer to live away from this body to live with the Lord,” Paul says. What is it that we are confident of? We are confident Jesus is risen from the dead. We are confident he is sitting at the right hand of the Father. We are confident Jesus is coming back and when he does we will be raised bodily from the dead with an immortal, imperishable, powerful body like he was raised with. We are confident that when we fall asleep in the LORD we shall be with him even as the thief on the cross was with Christ in Paradise that day he died. Many of of us, particularly as we are younger, sometimes may be caught up in the good things like having a career, getting old with our spouse, having and raising children and watching them grow, and we don’t think of it actually being better to be with the LORD. We don’t start thinking that though until everything according to worldly standards are going down. Yet, the fact of the matter is, even our bodiless existence with the LORD is still better than our life here. But the LORD keeps us here until our time because he has stuff for us to do here and to be done to here.

So, Paul tells us, “whether we live here or move out, we try hard to please Him.” Jesus didn’t save us to sit on our hands and do nothing. Otherwise, we would all be zapped dead upon conversion. He still has callings, vocations for us to carry out in this world. He calls us to trust him and to serve one another in love. Therefore in all we do we should do it to please him. We could be a mother, father, son, daughter or worker. We could manage others affairs. We could own businesses. We could be elected officials. Whatever stations in life God has called us to, we should make it our aim to please him in that work. There is a reward for us comenserate with what we do here in faith.

In 1 Cor. 3, Paul writes, ^12”If on this foundation you build anything of gold, silver, fine stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³what each one does will be known. That day will show what it is because the fire will reveal it and test it to show what kind of work everyone has done. ¹⁴If what you built on the foundation stands the test, you will get paid. ¹⁵If your work is burned, you will lose something, but you will be saved, though it will be like going through a fire.” Are you doing your work with faith in the LORD or out of fear? Are you fulfilling your vocations our of trust in Christ and love for your fellows or out of greed for worldly goods? Are you doing objectively good things or are you continuing your life of sin?

You should know, you will stand before Christ in judgment and receive in yourselves your reward whether good of evil depending on what you did with the gift of grace that has been given you. But as Paul said in the paragraph above, you will have much because you built upon your foundation with works of faith and love or you will have little because the works you did with the grace given you were not done with trust in Christ or out of love for others. You may want to ask yourself why are you doing what you are doing.

Heavenly Father, whether we are with Christ in heaven or on earth below, give us your grace that in everything we do we make it our aim to please you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.