A WORTHY WALK (3)

“Therefore we also PRAY ALWAYS for you that God would count you WORTHY of this CALLING...” – 2 Thessalonians 1:11a

A WORTHY WALK in God should be the priority prayer of every Believer in Christ: “Therefore we also PRAY ALWAYS for you that God would count you WORTHY of this CALLING, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2The.1: 11-12). The New International Versions says: “With this in mind, we constantly PRAY for you, that our GOD may MAKE YOU WORTHY of HIS CALLING, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith” (v.11). Ultimately it is God that makes us worthy of His calling; it is not by our self-effort.

Although we bear personal responsibility to walk worthy of God’s calling, we cannot make ourselves worthy. God does. He enables us – counts us worthy – by responding to our revelation-inspired prayer – the kind that Paul prayed for the Thessalonian Believers. Walking worthy of the Lord doesn’t mean working to earn or merit God’s favour. It means embracing and using His mercies and grace to please Him. Only God can make us worthy to stand in Christ’s Presence, now and when He returns, so that we can glorify Him. And God can do more than make us worthy. He can also empower us to live and to serve. God will help whoever it is that has the desire to grow in goodness or other spiritual virtues. He is the Master Builder, working in us to produce His own masterpiece. But He calls on us to come along with Him and be involved. Let’s get prepared to walk and work alongside the Master Builder.

With all that’s bestowed on us in Christ, we have no excuse to no walk worthy. We can live to please Him and walk in ways that glorify Him. And, we must: “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to WALK just as HE WALKED” (1Jh.2:6). This is the proof that we know God: “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him” (1Jh.2: 3-5). “Finally my brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us HOW you ought to WALK and to please God” (1The.4:1).

How we live daily, relate with other people and with God – and the kind of mind we have – are all important to the Lord. There’s a way Believers should and must live, distinct from non-believers: “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer WALK as the rest of the Gentiles WALK, in the futility of their mind” (Eph. 4:17). God expects every new Believer in Christ, who becomes a member of the church, to be trained and nurtured through the Word and by His Spirit, for a worthy walk in Him.

A Worthy Walk in God is practical to life, as evident in the testimony of the Thessalonian Believers (vv.3-4). Paul reminded Timothy: “But if I am delayed, I write so that that you may know HOW YOU OUGHT to CONDUCT yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1Tim.3:15). Christian Conduct matters: “Only let YOUR CONDUCT be WORTHY of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving for the faith of the gospel” (Phi.1:27). A Worthy Walk is worthy conduct that pleases God.