Counted Worthy

In 2 Thessalonians 1:11, Paul is praying for the new believers in the church at Thessalonica. He is praying "That they would be worthy of their calling."
If we go back to Matthew 22:1-14, we will get a little of what it means to be worthy of our calling.

There is to be a great wedding feast. It is to be a feast to end all feasts, so to speak. A great event. Fancy invitations are sent out by the servants of the Lord of the feast. They are to come back with an RSVP, but none of the invited would have anything to do with it. Each was busy in his own little kingdom. Some even killed those who were sent to them.

The Lord of the Feast, the KING says everything is ready, but the invited guests are not WORTHY.

So He sends to invite any one in the highways and byways of the city. None were rich, none were what we might think of as "worthy." There were some good, and some bad. But they readily accepted the invitation and came ready and dressed properly. All except for one party crasher who came in another way, wasn't dressed for it, and was cast out.

The worthy ones were the ones who, in spite of their failure and sin, gladly received the invitation and came dressed in the proper dress. This was what was absolutely necessary to get into the feast. I rather think that when the invitation was given, the garment was also given. It was like a ticket.

The garment of worthiness represents the Righteousness of Christ that is given to the believer which makes him worthy to enter into the presence of God and to the marriage feast of the Lamb.

We will not be able to enter Heaven and the Marriage feast of the Lamb in our own righteousness, only His.

Now, those who refused had their own righteousness. They were relegios that had the Law in little boxes on their wrists, the little skullcaps on their heads, all the pomp and ceremony they could get. But that wasn't what was needed. A willing heart, and a glad acceptance to receive from the King a robe, a wedding robe that was not theirs, that came by faith, and faith alone.

~Bill Gibson

Sept 7, 2007

2 Thessalonians 1: 3-12

3. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
4. Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5. All this is evidence that God's judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.
6. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you
7. and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
8. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power
10. on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
11. With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.
12. We pray this 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.

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

Matthew 22

1. Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:
2. "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.
3. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4. "Then he sent some more servants and said, 'Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.'

5. "But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.
6. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.
7. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8. "Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.
9. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.'
10. So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11. "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.
12. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.

13. "Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

14. "For many are invited, but few are chosen."