Worthy of your Calling.
In the former letter to the Church of Thessalonica, the Apostle had dwelt, in ever-memorable words which sound like a prelude of the trump of God on the coming of Christ at the end to judge the world and to gather His servants into His rest. That great thought seems to have excited some of the hotter heads in Thessalonica, and to have led to a general feverishness and unwholesome expectancy of the near approach or actual dawn of that day. This letter is intended as a supplement to the former epistle, and to damp down the fire which has been kindled. It, therefore, dwells with emphasis on the necessary preliminaries to the dawning of that day of the Lord, and throughout seeks to lead the excited spirits to patience and persistent work, and to calm their feverish expectations. This purpose colours the whole letter.
I. Notice first, here, the Divine test for Christian lives: "We pray for you, that God would count you worthy of your calling." Now, it is to be observed that this counting worthy refers mainly to a future estimate to be made by God of the completed career and permanent character brought out of earth into another state by Christian souls. So, then, we are brought face to face with this thought of an actual, stringent judgment which God will apply in the future to the lives and characters of professing Christians. Now, that is a great deal too much forgotten in our popular Christian teaching, and in our average Christian faith. Let no Christian man fancy that he shall escape the righteous judgment of God. An absolute correspondence, a complete worthiness or perfect desert, is impossible for us all, but a worthiness which His merciful judgment who makes allowance for us all may accept, as not too flagrantly contradictory of what He meant us to be, is possible even for our poor attainments and our stained lives. If it were Paul's supreme aim, should it not be ours, that we may be worthy of Him that hath called us, and walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called?
II. Note, here, the Divine help to meet the test. Paul says, in effect, first, that God will fulfil every desire that longs for goodness. He is scarcely deserving of being called good, who does not desire to be better. Aspiration must always be ahead of performance in a growing life, such as every Christian life ought to be. To long for any righteousness and beauty of goodness, is, in some imperfect and incipient measure, to possess the good for which we long.
III. Note the Divine glory of the Worthy. This fulfilment of every desire of goodness and work of faith is in order that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him. Christ's reputation is in our hands. Men judge of Him by us. The name of the Lord Jesus is glorified in you if you live worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; and people will think better of the Master if His disciples are faithful. On the other hand, there is glory accruing to perfected saints in Christ. "And ye in Him." And the union will lead to a participation in His glory which shall exalt their limited, stained, and fragmentary humanity into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
A. Maclaren, Paul's Prayers,p. 1.
Reference: 2 Thessalonians 1:11; 2 Thessalonians 1:12. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. i., Nos. 41, 42.