11 Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power,
12 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.
Verse 11 picks up where verse 5 left off; verses 6-10 are a parenthesis in Paul’s point.
also (v.11) — marks “pray” as the main point
fulfill (v.11) = accomplish, make effective
How profoundly grateful we should be to God “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and [His own] grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Timothy 1:9).
This gratitude should be expressed in our daily walk. Thus, as the Apostles exhorts believers in Ephesians 4:1-3 to walk worthy of their calling, so here he assures the Thessalonian believers of his unceasing prayers that God might count them worthy of “this calling,” i.e., that their walk might be such that He can approve it.
And as he assures the Colossians believers of his prayers that they “might be filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will,” and so “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work” (Colossians 1:9-10), so here … he prays that [the Thessalonians] might “fulfill all the good pleasure of [God’s] will, and the work of faith with power.”
And all this, he says, “that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him …” Ponder thoughtfully: One day our blessed Lord will “be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe,” (1:10), but His name should be glorified in us now, to the fullest possible extent, “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” — Stam, pages 117-118.
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Paul prays God will count us worthy of being spared [the wrath of the Tribulation]. In his first letter he begged the Thessalonians to walk worthy of this calling (1 Thessalonians 2:11-12), which is what grace is all about. The Colossians had the Lord, [but] Paul exhorted them to walk worthy of Him (Colossians 1:9-10). The Thessalonians had the hope of the pre-tribulation rapture, [but] Paul prayed they’d walk worthy of it. But in his second epistle, he prayed God would count them worthy of it by rapturing them before the Tribulation.
But if the pre-tribulation rapture was a sure thing, why did Paul pray for it? He was praying according to the revealed will of God, as he did in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. Hezekiah did too (2 Kings 20:1-5), reminding God of His promise in 1 Kings 2:4 that he couldn’t die childless since he’d been good. God hadn’t forgotten the promise, [but] He wanted to see if Hezekiah would remember it and pray for it. He delights when we pray according to His will, and that’s what Paul was doing in praying God [would] count them worthy of the pre-tribulation rapture.
This will “fulfill all the good pleasure of His will.” His “good pleasure” for Israel concerned Jerusalem (Psalm 51:18) in the kingdom (Luke 12:32). The Lord taught the Jews to pray for this (Matthew 6:10). His good pleasure for us is the pre-tribulation rapture, and Paul prayed for it. He also prayed that God would fulfill “the work of faith with power,” i.e., the work of His faithfulness (cf. Colossians 2:12) in rapturing us with power.
When the Lord keeps his promise to rapture us before the Tribulation, He will be glorified in us. God is always glorified when He keeps His promises! He will be glorified in Israel when He keeps His promises to her, but He’ll also be glorified in us when He keeps His promises to us. — Kurth.
