What is our First Call?
How do we go from living for survival to living for the calling?
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-22 NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
Genesis 3:17-19 (NIV)
“Master, we’ve toiled all night and caught nothing…”
Luke 5:5 NEW KING JAMES VERSION (NKJV)
You Were Made for More!
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Genesis 1: 27-28 (NIV)
You are an unrepeatable masterpiece created to be a reflection of Almighty God in this world, called to rule and reign over His creation.
“Jesus became one of us in order to restore the image of God in us.” Athanasius (d. 373 AD )
“The glory of God is man fully alive.” Irenaeus (d. 202 AD)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesians 2: 10 (NIV)
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
Ephesians 4:1 (NIV)
FOLLOW ME!
“Discipleship is: being with Jesus, to become like Jesus, to learn to do the things that Jesus did.” – John Mark Comer
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Romans 12:1 THE MESSAGE (MSG)
“…when you discover what you will be in your life, set to do it as if God Almighty has called you at this particular moment in history to do it…If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music…Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.