Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:4-12 ESV)
There is a lot here and I don't think I can cover it all, so I will stick to a few things that stand out to me.
For those Christians around the world who are currently suffering for their faith and for those of us who will in the future, in one sense there is comfort here, but in another sense it can be discouraging.
The discouraging part is that Christians suffering for their faith may not ever see relief from it in this life. They will have to wait until Jesus comes again to take them home to glory.
The encouraging part is that
1. Our suffering here, helps to make us worthy of God's calling.
2. The fact that our suffereing here won't be ended until the return of Jesus Christ, causes us to put our focus on Him, looking for Him and desiring to be prepared for His return. It weans us off the world.
There are many religious groups these days who teach that we have to work to become worthy of God's favor. Their whole religion is built around the theme of doing works to become worthy.
Did you notice what these verses say about the worthiness issue?
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
God will make us worthy by His power! We do not have to do it by ourselves. In fact, if we are trying to make ourselves worthy in God's sight, then we do not know God. God is perfect and holy in every way and can not accept sin into His heaven. We are sinful by nature and every good work we do is tainted by sin. How can we think that we can make ourselves worthy enough to stand in His presence? To think that we can do that means we don't know God and the demise of those who do not know God is clear in this passage. Sobering stuff.
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