His faith and power
Therefore, we always pray for you that our God would count you worthy of His calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, 2 Thessalonians 1:11
This verse makes me smile. Think about it. Paul is praying that God will fulfill all the pleasure of His goodness for the Thessalonians. Not only that but also that they would walk out God’s good pleasure with faith and power. The truly amazing part of this is that God wants to do this for you and me today. It says right here, it gives God pleasure to do good works in me and through me. That is, according to His goodness which is far better than anything I can imagine. So why wouldn’t I trust Him with every area of my life. He wants good for me and He is well able to get it to me.
So what does it look like to walk out God’s good pleasure. Your life will look like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bring forth fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither and whatever you do will prosper. (Psalms 1:3) When God works His good pleasure in you, He always gives you the victory (1 Cor. 15:57) and always causes you to triumph/win (2 Cor. 2:14). That is so clear in His gift of Salvation. Romans 8:32 says that He did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, so why wouldn’t God, along with His gift of Jesus, also freely give us all things? Certainly God would not have given us the best gift He could give and then hold everything else back from us. Now He has nothing to lose. He wants us to have all things that are necessary to live a godly life. 2 Peter 1:3 says that by his diving power, God has given us all thing that pertain to life and godliness through our relationship with Christ Jesus.
So now the question is, how does God fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness in me? The answer is in the last part of the verse. By walking in faith with His power. Another translation says: He gives you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. This speaks to me because it is how I live my life. When I get a nudge or prompting from the Holy Spirit, I look to God for the faith and power to accomplish it. It doesn’t always look possible and sometimes it doesn’t even make sense in my natural mind. However, I know He is able to do the great task, no matter what it is if I will yield to Him and take the steps of obedience as He walks me through the process. Maybe it’s in finding a place to live, encouraging my family, serving in ministry, writing books or even things as simple as praying for my husband and watching God do amazingly good works in and through him. Now I surrender my whole life to God’s good pleasure because there is no greater way to live.
What about you? Today I want to encourage you to look for God to show up in your life with the good pleasure of His goodness by walking in obedience in faith and power. God doesn’t demand obedience from us so that He can control and manipulate us, God requires obedience from us so He can get His good pleasure to us. He knows where all the good things are that He has planned for us and if we follow His direction, we will run right into them!
Today’s scripture reading: 2 Thessalonians 1
The Daily Dose 