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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Vocation
or Vacation Your
vocation is your calling; your life's purpose. Your vacation is
a brief break from your vocation. With that in mind, it seems that
many Christians treat their life as a Christian more like a vacation
than the vocation it is meant to be. In other words, they got
saved simply to slide down the hill of life into heaven when they die,
and that with little thought given to their earthly vocation. In Acts
1:8, Jesus tells His followers that when the Holy Spirit enters
them, they will be His witnesses. That is a vocation, not a
vacation. Our purpose in life is to represent Jesus and His
kingdom to the surrounding world. In 1
Corinthians 12, Paul explains that when God's Spirit enters our
lives, we are placed into supportive and functional relationships within
the church. There, we live out our Christian vocation together.
1
Corinthians 12: 4 through 6 tells us that we have help in carrying out
our vocation. "There
are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.
There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are
different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the
same God at work." Paul
teaches that the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts, often called
"gifts of the Spirit" to equip us for our vocation.
Jesus, then, appoints us to a service or a vocation, some of which are
apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors/teachers (Ephesians 4:11).
Beyond that, God the Father energizes or empowers us with inherent
abilities or talents suited to our vocation, which is the meaning of the
word "working" in the text. Also,
in Romans 12:3 Paul writes this. "For
by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of
yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with
sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each
of you." In
the context of our vocation, Paul reminds us that we have been given
grace, that is, the divine ability to live our vocation. Along
with grace, God distributes faith, which is the capacity to trust Him as
we live our vocation. Being
a Christian is more than sitting in a pew each Sunday. It's more
than reading a few Bible verses and offering a few prayers. It's
embracing and living out our God-appointed vocation, while we await our
eternal home, which is the Revelation 21 new earth, not heaven.
There, we will step into our renewed vocations, fulfilling our ruling
responsibilities God intended for humanity from the beginning. We
may be among the "kings of the earth who bring their splendor into
it", that is the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:24). Until
then, the Christian life is a vocation, not a vacation.
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