Week 49 2 Thessalonians 1
Paul told the church people in Thessalonica he was praying for God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live…This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.
When it comes to me successfully living a worthy and good life it’s the Lord who makes it all possible.
Thinking about it from the other side I figure it’s completely possible to live a fairly worthy life on my own. I can make good lifestyle choices (follow the Golden Rule & be helpful kind generous selfless sympathetic & like that). I figure there are lots of people who live good lives. Good lives lived independently.
Paul doesn’t actually call it this but I think his view would be that living a good life – an independent good life – would be a Life of Limited Goods (goods with in-built ceilings). Paul wasn’t talking about that kind of life. There’s two features to the life he was talking about: a) it honoured Christ & b) it was made possible (only) by the grace of God.
Is it possible to live a good life minus the Lord? For sure. But it would be a different kind of good life. Not Paul’s. Same word. Different meaning.
Note: quote from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (NLT)