Myths about calling. We are often left grasping for an adequate answer when asked, “What is God calling you to do?” I believe the reason for this is because “calling” is a misunderstood concept among Christians and needs to be clarified. Many think that calling is reserved for tasks that are deemed super-spiritual. The misconception behind this is the distinction between “sacred” and “secular” areas of life. According to this myth, the truly significant parts of life are such things as participation in church, prayer, and reading the Bible; everything else in life- work, family, friendships, hobbies- are viewed upon as unimportant to God. As a result, we actually spend most of our lives doing what is thought of as meaningless. Related to this is the myth that God fits somewhere in our hierarchical system of priorities: God is first and all others follow in some other arbitrary order. Inherently this way of thinking creates a competition between God and all areas of our lives. Even worse, this relegates God to be one of many parts of our lives. But God does not merely exist within our lives; we exist in his universe as part of his creation to worship him!
What does it really mean to be “called”? Let’s look at how the term “calling” is presented in the Bible. It is most often used to describe the state of being in covenant relationship with God. This is what happened when the Lord Jesus commanded his disciples to first follow him (Mt 4:19) and taught them about surrendering our entire lives to him (Mt 16:24-25). Ephesians 4:1 says, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Similarly, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1:11: “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.” Calling is our identity that God expects his people to live out: redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, made new through his resurrection, and now fulfilling God’s original purposes for us. If this is the case, all who profess to be Christians called to be passionate, committed followers of Jesus Christ. We are redeemed creatures that can now function properly as worshippers and lovers of God. So what does it mean to live out this calling tangibly in our lives?
Worshipping God through... So while we’re always searching or waiting for the mystical “calling” to do something important for God, the Bible already states five areas of life that we are called. We express our whole-hearted love and worship for God through our: 1) personhood, 2) neighbor, 3) family, 4) vocation, and 5) church. These segments of life are not organized in any particular order of importance- remember that our only priority ought to be that God is glorified through our lives. Worshipping God through these five areas requires a surrendered heart, since it is so easy for us to make idols out of any of them. It also requires faith, since there will be times that God will direct us in these areas in ways that are difficult or costly. For most of the time, we just need to be faithful in the so-called mundane aspects of life. So when we are able to get a theological perspective of these things, the mundane is elevated to worship, through which we experience the pleasure of God and God receives the glory. Below is a brief explanation of each of these five areas of life that we are called to worship God.
Our personhood. We were created in the image of God (Ge 1:26) with the ability to choose to worship God. Unfortunately we are depraved sinners and incapable to obey God’s command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Dt 6:5; Mk 12:29-30). The power of the gospel enables us to love God and others (1 Jn 4:19) and gives us personal, intimate access to God (Eph 2:18). This requires a personal decision to put our faith in Christ and follow him. Jesus himself modeled this personal devotion to the Father through his fervent prayer life and complete obedience (Heb 5:7-8); in the same way his followers are expected to foster such a relationship with God through prayer and intake of the Word of God. And through continually walking in the Holy Spirit, we cultivate godly character within our souls (Gal 5:22-23). Our bodies are also “temples of the Holy Spirit” that are affected by our sexuality, diet, and health (1 Co 6:19). Therefore, we need to take care of our bodies by practicing self-control in these areas.
Our neighbor. Christians as the redeemed people of God also have a calling to their “neighbor.” An important part of the Old Testament Law states, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Lev 19:18). Surrounding this command are auxiliary commands to leave excess crops from harvests for the poor; to not steal from, deal falsely, or lie to one another; to neither oppress nor treat others badly; and to deal with neighbors with justice (Lev 19:9-17). The parable of the Good Samaritan is a powerful lesson about our calling to show mercy and grace to others who are in need (Lk 10:25-37). The apostle James says that we demonstrate the authenticity of our faith through our good deeds of providing for the physical needs of others (Jas 2:14-17). The privatized world that we live in makes it difficult to fulfill this part of our calling, but as we follow Christ, his disciples need to be people who let our light shine, so that the world sees our good works and praise our Father in heaven (Mt 5:16).
Our family. God created Adam and Eve in his image and instituted marriage, the bringing together of two people as a family (Ge 2:23-25). God also declared that he intended the two to have children and fill the earth (Ge 1:28). So before the fall the family reflected perfect communion with God and with one another. In the New Testament Jesus reaffirms this original intention of marriage and family: “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Mt 19:6). The heart of the Law also reflects the importance of the family in terms of their covenant relationship with the Lord. The sixth commandment explicitly states the obligation of children to “honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12). This was also to be the manner that the family was taught to be in the early church. Paul taught that the responsibility for wives is to submit to their husbands, for husbands to love their wives, for children to obey their parents, and for fathers to raise their children in the Lord’s ways (Eph 5:21-6:4). The concept of parents “discipling” their children originates in the shema (Dt 6:4-9), which states how God’s people are supposed to teach their children how to love God with all their being.
Our vocation. Also contained in the account of the creation of man and woman is the mandate the Lord gave them to steward the rest of creation. One of the major reasons human beings were created was to take care of the world’s inhabitants and resources. Contrary to what most people think, work was created as “good”- unfortunately as a consequence to the fall, Adam’s work became toilsome (Ge 3:17-19). Vocational work is a necessity of life; it is essential to the stability and wellbeing of society. Through the gospel, work is redeemed back to God’s original purpose: for his glory as a form of worship (Eph 2:10). The apostle Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col 3:23-24). He also mentions the practical nature of work: we work so that we do not become lazy and unduly dependent on others (2 Thes 3:6-10). We must also avoid the other extreme of letting our vocations dominate our lives. In fact, the Lord instituted the Sabbath in Old Testament days so that people could step away from their daily work and depend on God for his provision.
Our church. In addition to the physical families that God calls us to, Christians belong to a spiritual family- people linked together by the common Heavenly Father and made sons and daughters by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 3:26-29). In the Old Testament, God’s people (the Israelites) committed themselves as a community to follow the Lord and many times they failed as a community to be faithful to him. Jesus Christ opened the wide the doors to his household, making it clear that all types of people and nations could enter into the family of God. When anyone puts their faith in Christ, they are “ingrafted branches” into God’s family (Ro 11:17). This is how Jesus explained it: “Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here is my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt 12:49-50). God’s purpose for the church is to make known God’s purposes in the physical and spiritual world. This calling to be the church was lived out well in the book of Acts, as demonstrated by the communities of believers in Jerusalem (Ac 2:42-49; 4:32-35) and Antioch (Ac 11:19-30). There is an abundance of instruction in the New Testament epistles about how to live out this calling in the context of relationships with “one another” (e.g. Ro 12:10, 15:17; Gal 5:13; Eph 4:2, 32; Col 3:16; Heb 3:13).
The difficulty of the call is to be faithful to all. Practically speaking, there will be seasons in our lives when one or two of these five areas will be more emphasized that the others. Part of the difficulty of life is being able to juggle all five areas well. Some parts of these callings need to be mutually exclusive at some points. It is healthy to have time alone with your family; there are parts of our jobs that need might be done alone at the office. But we will also find that we function with greater effectiveness when some of these areas intersect with each other. Serving in the church becomes much more enjoyable when the people in the church are close personal friends and become integrated into our families. Our work becomes much more effective when we see its direct impact on our communities and neighbors. But if we agree that our callings to personhood, neighbor, family, vocation and church are all explicitly mandated in the Bible, we need to strive to be faithful in all of them.
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Andrew Jun is an associate pastor at Harvest Mission Community Church.