Are you Ready for your Purpose?

2 Thessalonians 1:10-12

10 when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed. 11 To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Glorified in His saints…that’s an interesting way to put it.  For reference, “saints” refers to all that believe in Christ as Savior.  Paul is telling us here that He will be glorified in us, (not by us or without us, by Himself).  Rather, He will be glorified in us, meaning that His glory will be evident in our being.  We get to be a part of bringing Glory to God.  We even have that opportunity now, if we so choose.  Paul here uses this opportunity to remind the Thessalonians that this includes them – for our testimony to you was believed.

Verse 11 I had to read a couple times over.  At first, I thought this meant that he prays that God deems them worthy to be saved.  However, that’s not what he says here.  He is talking about calling and purpose.  He defines what this means in the rest of the sentence, fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power.  You see, God will not call us to fulfill the purpose He created us for until we are ready.  It would be like taking a soldier fresh out of boot camp and putting him in charge of a battalion.  It would end in utter failure because the soldier has no experience and only basic knowledge.  Also keep in mind the other direction: if you took the same soldier and told him he was going to be in charge of an entire battalion, he’d probably run away or decline because he knows there is no way he can effectively do it.  What are we doing to get to that point where God counts us worthy of our calling?  If He calls us, can we do it and are we willing?

I believe verse 12 not only tells us the point of our calling (everyone’s calling has the same end goal), but also the state we have to be in to be worthy of the calling.  Looking first at the purpose of our purpose, it is to bring glory to God.  Anything outside of that is self serving.  Likewise, we should be wary not to lose focus of that while carrying out our purpose, because it will end in failure.

Now let’s look at it from the other perspective.  It isn’t until we understand the purpose of our calling and look at it as “how God wants us to glorify Him” that He will reveal it to us.  In other words, our head has to be “in the game” or in the right place, so to speak.  If you are of the mindset that you are going to use His power, etc. to benefit yourself, then He isn’t going to “promote” you.  Think about it from a business aspect.  The CEO isn’t going to put you in a position of more power and responsibility unless it is going to benefit the company, is he?  Surely, you will benefit from it in different ways, but if that is your only motivation, then he would rather use someone less skilled with the right attitude, wouldn’t he?  So as it is with God and His purpose for our lives.

Sometimes we feel like we are doing “all the right things” for God to bless us with purpose, calling, and blessing, yet we don’t understand we are not yet ready.

Why aren’t you ready?  Are you willing to be?  Are you working towards preparing for what God has called you to?

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