God calls (Recap)
As the Lord’s prisoner, then, I beg you to live lives worthy of your high calling. (Ephesians 4:1 J.B. Phillips)
In Part 1 of this series we set the stage for inquiring into what the apostle Paul meant in this verse by asking two questions: What is the high calling he is referring to? and How does one live a life worthy of that calling? We tackled the former question concluding that our high calling is to know God and become like his Son, Jesus. We now move to explore the question of how to live lives worthy of such a grand calling. I’ve no doubt that but a dent will be made here in this post by way of answer, for the breadth of a suitable reply to such a question is as broad as any mountain vista. But I hope to at least help place our first step upon the mountain trail leading up to such a wondrous sight!
Love’s preeminence
From the same pen that wrote the letter to the church at Ephesus comes another letter, this time to the church in Corinth.
If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Emphasis, mine.)
Above all else, love stands preeminent. God is love. (1 John 4:16) To know God and become like his Son is to step into a love story inviting that story to enfold you, transform you, and make it your story, too. The very purpose of our mortal life is to learn how to love: God first and our neighbor as our self.
When the Pharisees heard that [Jesus] had silenced the Sadducees they came up to him in a body, and one of them, an expert in the Law, put this test-question: “Master, what are we to consider the Law’s greatest commandment?”
Jesus answered him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’. This is the first and great commandment. And there is a second like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. The whole of the Law and the Prophets depends on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
So then, living worthy lives begins with responding to the call of God to know him then yielding ourselves to become like Jesus living a life characterized by love. For, as we have read, nothing can be achieved in all of life without love.
Michael
Does calling play the definitive role in your life it should?
Better understand what calling is and why it is so important with our Calling Primer. Download it for free.