Examining one’s calling: What is one’s call in Christ?

In our Sunday School class at Calvary, I have been studying Ephesians 4 in preparation for teaching. Paul talks in that passage about being “worthy of the calling” with which you have been called. So, the Spirit has led me to very closely consider my own calling.

Here goes.

First of all, I think one’s calling is informed by Paul’s poetic exhortations in Philippians 2: 1-13: 1 Therefore… if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by

  • being like-minded,

  • having the same love,

  • being one in spirit and of one mind.

  • 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,

  • 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

  •  5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, 
   did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 
7 rather, he made himself nothing 
   by taking the very nature[b] of a servant, 
   being made in human likeness. 
8 And being found in appearance as a man, 
   he humbled himself 
   by becoming obedient to death— 
      even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 
   and gave him the name that is above every name, 
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
   to the glory of God the Father.

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Therefore, this is what I consider to be My Calling in Christ---

Calling, for me is:

clip_image001 To remain/abide in Yoke with Christ, and that also means being in yoke with my yokefellows of His Body;

clip_image001[1] To “let the same mind be in me that was in Christ Jesus”, to have the same mindset as Christ Jesus;

clip_image001[2] To live each day with growing awareness that Christ is in my heart and everywhere in my life;

clip_image001[3] To make effort to grow as a listener -- to the Spirit, to listen to others;

clip_image001[4] To make continued effort to be a learner, each day of my life;

clip_image001[5] To read the Word—’one’s personal canon’-to learn specifics about how to obey;

clip_image001[6] To serve Christ loyally through His church.

I am sure there are many more aspects to my own calling…and I am sure there are to yours. I am definitely called in relationship to my family, and to my friends…to be all these things to them.

May The Spirit energize me to do so and to be so today!

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