SIGNS OF LIVING TO PLEASE GOD...by Richard Baxter

"So whether we are at home or away,
we make it our aim to please Him."
-2 Cor. 5:9

"For the love of Christ controls us,
because we have concluded this:
that one has died for all, therefore all have died;
and he died for all, that those who live might
no longer live for themselves but for him who
for their sake died and was raised."
-2 Cor. 5:14-16

See therefore that you live upon God's approval as that which you chiefly seek, and will suffice you: which you may discover by these signs.

1. You will be most careful to understand the Scripture, to know what doth please and displease God. (Psalm 19:7-11; 2 Peter 1:3-4)

2. You will be more careful in the doing of every duty, to fit it to the pleasing of God than men. (1 Cor. 10:31)

3. You will look to your hearts, and not only to your actions; to your ends, and thoughts, and the inward manner and degree. (Psalm 139:23-24)

4. You will look to secret duties as well as public and to that which men see not, as well as unto that which they see. (Psalm 19:14)

5. You will reverence your consciences, and have much to do with them, and will not slight them: when they tell you of God's displeasure, it will disquiet you; when they tell you of his approval, it will comfort you. (Acts 24:16; Heb. 4:12-16)

6. Your pleasing men will be charitable for their good, and pious in order to the pleasing of God, and not proud and ambitious for your honour with them, nor impious against the pleasing of God. (Roms. 15:2)

7. Whether men be pleased or displeased, or how they judge of you, or what they call you, will seem a small matter to you, as their own interest, in comparison to God's judgment. You live not on them. You can bear their displeasure, censures, and reproaches, if God be but pleased. These will be your evidences. (1 Cor. 4:1-5)