What is God's calling? We tend to want selfish specifics to help us run our own lives but God's will is larger than us.
What is God calling us to do?
1) Love People
2) Share the Good News
3) Rinse and repeat
Read the New Testament. I appreciate Jesus' style. He valued people, called them by name, visited their homes, fed them and healed them. He showed compassion. The people that got Him ticked were the people who had reduced everything to a set of rules and regulations and lost sight of God's heart.
Most everyone is familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan. A man beaten and bloodied lay penniless in the ditch. Two religious leaders walked right by him and ignored him. It was the Samaritan man who stopped, picked the man up and got him cleaned up. He took him to an inn to rest and heal and he paid his bill! Jesus told us it was this Samaritan hero who understood God's heart.
Then there was the woman that religious leaders dragged in front of Jesus saying they had caught her having sex with a man who was not her husband. Jesus came to her defense in this crowd that wanted to see her dead. Then he told her to go home and live differently.
What is God's will? It is that we live for Him and strive to become more and more like Jesus. When we become more and more like Jesus we cannot ignore the bruised and bloodied, the penniless and the down and out. We cannot turn a deaf ear to the abused and oppressed.
Is it God's will that you take that job? Is it God's will that you buy that car, work extra hours for that promotion? I think we've probably got things out of order. Instead we should ask, "How can I better love, share and introduce people to Hope in Christ?"
James was pretty straight forward as he wrote, "Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world." (Jas. 1:27)
What is God calling us to do?
1) Love People
2) Share the Good News
3) Rinse and repeat
Read the New Testament. I appreciate Jesus' style. He valued people, called them by name, visited their homes, fed them and healed them. He showed compassion. The people that got Him ticked were the people who had reduced everything to a set of rules and regulations and lost sight of God's heart.
Most everyone is familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan. A man beaten and bloodied lay penniless in the ditch. Two religious leaders walked right by him and ignored him. It was the Samaritan man who stopped, picked the man up and got him cleaned up. He took him to an inn to rest and heal and he paid his bill! Jesus told us it was this Samaritan hero who understood God's heart.
Then there was the woman that religious leaders dragged in front of Jesus saying they had caught her having sex with a man who was not her husband. Jesus came to her defense in this crowd that wanted to see her dead. Then he told her to go home and live differently.
What is God's will? It is that we live for Him and strive to become more and more like Jesus. When we become more and more like Jesus we cannot ignore the bruised and bloodied, the penniless and the down and out. We cannot turn a deaf ear to the abused and oppressed.
Is it God's will that you take that job? Is it God's will that you buy that car, work extra hours for that promotion? I think we've probably got things out of order. Instead we should ask, "How can I better love, share and introduce people to Hope in Christ?"
James was pretty straight forward as he wrote, "Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world." (Jas. 1:27)
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