Bringing the Dead to Life

2 Thessalonians 1:11 – Bringing the Dead to Life

Judgment equals reward for the believer. That is a given, a certainty. Why, then, does Paul write, “I pray always…?” Keep in mind two things. First, the word Paul uses for “pray” is in the present tense which indicates ongoing action. Then he adds to that the word “always” which emphasizes the constant nature of the prayer. Understand, Paul was informing these Christians that they were constantly the topic of his prayers to the Father. So just what was so important that this apostle continued to pray over and over again for the Thessalonican Christians? Look at the topic of the prayer: that God would count them worthy of their calling. What calling is that? The calling as Christians. The Bible is clear that God calls us to salvation. God initiates the invitation into a relationship with Himself, and without that, no man would be saved. Now please understand what I believe. God calls every human being to salvation, and it is our response to Him that makes the difference – we either accept or reject His invitation.

Okay, then. “I thought that the only way that we are made worthy of our calling is through the shed blood of Jesus when we accept His sacrifice as the payment for our sin,” you say. That is exactly right, so what is Paul really praying for? That their Christian lives would be as “heavy” as their calling in Christ. You see, I use the word “heavy” because when Paul says “make worthy” he is painting a picture. It is the idea of a scale or a balance, so the picture is that of putting our calling to salvation on one side of the scale and our lives as Christians on the other. Don’t misunderstand. It has nothing to do with whether we are saved or not. It isn’t about losing our salvation. It is the desire that Paul expressed in many of his thoughts but spelled out so beautifully in Ephesians 4:1. We are to “walk worthy of the vocation to which we are called.” We are to live for Jesus and “fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness….”

Dear friends, we cannot overlook this fact. We are saved by grace through faith. Period! Exclamation point! You cannot add or subtract anything to or from that statement. However, we are saved by grace in order to do good works. James tells us that in his letter. Read it and see. This is what Paul calls the “work of faith with power.” Do you know what I think this means? When we commit to living in obedience to God’s Word, we start making disciples, bearing fruit for Jesus, by His power. Do you want to read something amazing? Jesus said that we would do even greater works than He did (John 14:12). He wasn’t talking about bringing dead people back to life – at least not physically. He was talking about bringing lost people into the Kingdom of Heaven which is about bringing spiritually dead people into true life for the first time.