I think that, generally speaking, there is a spirit within our culture that values “being true to yourself” above “living to please others”. We celebrate the individual . . . we admire the rogue . . . perhaps, sometimes, there’s even a bit of envy for those who are able to march to the beat of a their own drummer. But what if, for the believer, that “other” is God? I fear that within the family of God the spirit of the world seduces some to be to true to themselves before walking to please God . . . dangerous stuff when we consider that within ourselves is something called “the old man” or “the flesh” which wars against the Spirit of God.

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification . . .   
(1Thessalonians 4:1-3a ESV)

I’ve been somewhat captured by this letter to the Thessalonians. Paul’s intense concern and desire for these believers just oozes from the first three chapters. Salvation without sanctification, for Paul, was failure . . . it would have been laboring in vain. Being born again without showing evidence of being a new creation was as tragic as a still birth. Taking the name Christian without walking as Christ would have walked (or at least stumbling along in a desire to emulate the Master) was to miss the mark. And so Paul sends Timothy to find out how the church is doing . . . the body of believers established after just a few weeks of Paul’s teaching . . . this group of babes in Christ left to deal with the affliction of a pagan and hostile environment . . . Paul wants to know who they are doing . . . and encourage them . . . and exhort them . . . to keep on keepin’ on.

Finally, he pleads here in chapter 4 that they would walk to please God . . . and to do so more and more.

I’m blown away first by the thought that I can please God. He who is holy, holy, holy . . . He who resides in unapproachable light . . . He who is the Sovereign over all creation . . . that anything I could do could please Him kind of separates the head from the shoulders. “Who am I, O LORD?” . . . that I could do anything that would bring You pleasure?

I am a blood bought child of God. Redeemed based on the finished work of Christ on the cross . . . justified and declared righteous as the payment for my sin has been rendered in full by the Lamb of God, come to take away the sin of the world . . . set apart and declared holy, invited before the throne of God as I stand in Christ, robed with His righteousness . . . indwelt, infused, and empowered by the Spirit of God and invited to participate in the divine work of taking sinners-saved-by-grace and conforming them to the very image of the blessed Son of God. That, by His grace alone, is who I am. And in light of that, the Spirit, through Paul, says I should walk to please God . . . and to do so more and more.

That I can please God is amazing . . . that I wouldn’t want to, and would rather “be true to myself”, is bizarre. Obedience isn’t a duty, it’s a privilege . . . faithfully pursuing the ways of the kingdom isn’t about avoiding some heavenly retribution so much as it is about wanting to delight the One who gave of Himself wholly for me. Even if the the flesh is weak (and it is) . . . the spirit should be willing . . . wanting . . . thirsting after walking in a way that pleases God . . . and to do so more and more.

For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.   (1Thessalonians 4:7 ESV)

O that I might be so transformed that “being true to myself” is indistinguishable from “living to please ANOTHER” . . . by His grace . . . for His glory . . .