In today's passage we see that Paul celebrates several things that are happening to the Thessalonian people. But these things aren't typically what we'd center our normal celebrations around. Paul gets excited about people seeing his words as God's words, about the endurance of persecution in the Thessalonians, and the fact that God will count the Thessalonian people as Paul's reward. What does all this mean? As Christians, we're working for a much higher reward system than this earth can offer us!