All of us have a tendency to please the Lord only in part. It may be that a Christian man or woman is very faithful in attendance at the house of God. They hear the desire of God and the command of God ringing in their ears not to neglect the assembling of themselves together, and they come to worship. Then also, they may be very knowledgeable in doctrine and read the books. They have read the Body of Divinity by dear old Thomas Watson, the great book of doctrine. It may be that the same person is quite a helpful person to others, but there may be a downside. That same person may be very snappy or reactive and not necessarily good tempered in place of business or study, or short tempered with the children. They may be privately prayerless, an aspect of the spiritual life fellow Christians will not see, very little prayer. Or it could be that there is an unclean element in the life, a looking at unclean images, deeply offensive to God and ruinous to life and no blessing can be channelled through that person and no real communion with God. Or it may be that a person is clean and well behaved and self-controlled, but never, ever witnesses. Or it may be, and I have seen this from time to time and it is so sad, that an excellent believer or believing couple are quietly drawn down the road of covetousness and acquisitiveness. There may be some missing components in the Christian life. That is what the apostle means here – pleasing the Lord in every department of life.
It may be that things you have done well in for years and you get to fifty and the devil is so cunning, the battery of temptations he brings against you, and he will open up an inconsistency and certain parts of your life get left out of your repentance or your self-examination. We have always got the strategy of Satan against us. There are a thousand demons of darkness at his beck and call watching the believer all the time, probing to bring us down and spoil the Christian life. Well we speak of progressive sanctification whereby we expect to be improving and more refined, and yet the battle is never over to bring us down and to open inconsistencies.