For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at His coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!
1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 (NRSVUE)
Have you ever taken the time to set goals, or create standards by which you can measure your success? Maybe you’ve been in a work meeting with charts, graphs, and predictions for quarterly growth? Or perhaps you’ve been on a sports team where all the sweat from practice and the stress from competition was to culminate in lifting a trophy at the end of the season? There are a lot of ways to measure success, and no matter what you’re doing there is an abstract “standard” that you strive to achieve.
The same can be said for our lives as Christians and members of the Church. How should we measure success, or at the very least know that we’re on the right track? It can be hard to quantify such a thing, as the way which we all follow Christ, and the things that Christ has called us to, can be quite unique. When looking through Israel’s history, what was it that measured their success? Psalm 67 implores God to be gracious to His people so that, “your way may be known upon the earth, your saving power among all nations.” Isaiah 42:6-7 says that God has called His people “as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”
This idea, that the goal of God’s people is to reach out and welcome in those who are not yet among the people of God, is substantiated by what Paul says to the church of Thessaloniki in the verse at the top of this devotion. What is the measure of success, Paul asks? It’s the people who have received the Gospel! Paul doesn’t write about personal achievement, monetary success, or worldly recognition. What matters to Paul, and what should matter to us, are those who “when you received the word of God that you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers,” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Our success, our crown of boasting, does not line up with the world’s. But, praise God, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;” (1 Corinthians 1:27). Our crown of boasting can only be those whom we have introduced to the love of Christ and who we have helped to accept the Gospel. But even our boasting is yet still more different than the world, for we cannot ultimately boast in anything but only in Christ who has in our weakness made perfection (Galatians 6:14)! All that we achieve, and all that we can boast about, is solely in Christ.
The crown that we wear is not like the ones around us. Our crown of boasting is only the spreading of the Gospel, and our crown is not one to be worn but one to be cast at the feet of Christ, our Lord and King of Kings. Let us run the race and hold ourselves to the proper standard—not money, power, or fame, but the Gospel of the cross of Christ.
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