Michael Kelley's Blog, page 12

So What Happened to Jonah, and Why Does it Matter?

The story of Jonah is one of the most well known in the entire Bible, even by people who don’t know much else about the Bible. It’s got a lot of elements to it – a reluctant messenger, a violent and dangerous people, shipwrecks, sea monsters – no wonder it’s an easy story to both tell and remember.

What the story of Jonah doesn’t have, however, is an ending.

You probably remember most of the details – Jonah was given a simple and straightforward task from the Lord. He was to go and deliver a message of judgment to the Ninevites. Problem was that Jonah didn’t want to go. The Assyrians who lived in Nineveh were the “bullies” of the day as they were known to be brutal in their attacks and unusually oppressive when they conquered other peoples. And Jonah had a sneaking suspicion that if he did go and he did deliver God’s message, then those people might just call out to God for mercy. And Jonah knew enough about God to know that He would answer that call.

Nineveh was to the east of Israel while the Mediterranean Sea was to the west. Jonah literally went the other direction. In his mind, he wanted to be as far away from where God called him to be. But God would not have it.

A terrible storm, a man overboard, and a few days in the belly of a great fish later, Jonah found himself vomited up on the beach and he finally went to work. Though the text says that it was a three day walk, which probably meant that it would take Jonah three days to walk from one end of the city to the other preaching his message, it only took him one. At the end of that one day, every citizen in Nineveh had been cut to the core. As evidence of their repentance, the king declared a state of extreme fast. The city was turning to God with all their might, even including their animals in their fast.

Now we come to the strange part – the last chapter of the book – Jonah 4 – finds the reluctant prophet sitting on a hill so angry that he wished he was dead (Jonah 4:9).

On the surface, Jonah is angry that the plant he was resting under died, leaving him exposed to the wind and sun. But God knew better:

But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:10-11).

And that’s it. That’s the end. As a reader, you are left with more than a few questions:

Did the prophet come to his senses and repent himself?Did he die up on that hill?Did he return to Israel as a bitter and angry man, never to be used of God again?

And those questions matter to us, or at least they should, because who has not been in Jonah’s position? Who has not run from what God called them to do? Who has not been frustrated at the choices God makes? Who has not had some kind of bias against a certain group of people? Who has not been in sin, and then been in anger?

These questions matter because Jonah’s story, like so many stories in the Bible, is our story, too. So is there hope for this disobedient prophet? Because if there is, then there is hope for us, too.

What happened at the end of Jonah’s story? Well, there is a very great reason to believe that Jonah did indeed come to his senses. And that reason is the fact that we can read the book that bears his name today.

Who wrote the book of Jonah? Jonah did. And given the manner in which he honestly paints himself in his own account, then this book that will bear his name for all time serves as a marker of his repentance. Surely this is one of the indications that someone has truly owned their sin and received God’s gracious gift of forgiveness and the freedom that comes from it. Surely it’s the ability to, without justification or equivocation, to own up to their own sin. And this is what Jonah has done.

So while the end of Jonah leaves us with questions, the fact that the book is there at all leaves us with hope. Hope not in ourselves, but rather in the healing grace of God in Christ that is still there for us all.

4 Reasons Your Troubles Lead You to Jesus

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all his ways, to love him, and to worship the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul? Keep the Lord’s commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good” (Deut. 10:12-13). 

God does not arbitrarily give us commands. Rather, the commands He gives us are for our own good. But we are many times the most belligerent of children. We lack the faith to see that these commands are not meant to be burdens, but instead are given out of Fatherly love. It’s hard to see that sometimes because our hearts pull us toward sin. Sometimes that’s the case. But other times, it’s plainly obvious to us that God’s commands are for our own good. Take this one, for example:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you (1 Peter 5:6-7).

There is no qualification here. The Scripture does not say to cast the big cares on Him; to cast the worthy cares on Him; to cast the really important cares on Him. No – we have a Father who enters into all our cares with us, whether time reveals them to be big or small. We are to cast them all.

You might say that all these cares – all these troubles – have the potential to lead us to Jesus. Of course, they might also lead us to other things. They might lead us to stress. They might lead us to coping mechanisms. They might lead us to anxiety. But if we have the right perspective, we can find at least some of the redemption wrapped up in all these troubles. These cares have the potential to lead us to Jesus, and here are four reasons why they do:

1. Our troubles break us out of complacency.

It is an ironic thing that prosperity tends to lead us to complacency. When we have no pressing troubles, no pressing cares, it’s very easy to become complacent in our relationship with the Lord. We roll along, day after day, sleep-walking our way through life. But troubles have a way of shocking us – of waking us up. They can cause us to emerge from our slumber, heighten our spiritual senses, and recenter us on our walk with Jesus.

2. Our troubles remind us of our need.

The old saying goes that there are no atheists in foxholes. That is to say, when life gets hard, it becomes much easier to turn to God because difficult circumstances remind us of how little control we truly have. We live under the illusion that we can protect ourselves, insulate ourselves, and provide for ourselves. But trouble reminds us that this is really, in the end, just smoke and mirrors. These cares make the desperate need we have for God emerge at the forefront of our minds and hearts.

3. Our troubles expose the sin inside us.

Imagine an orange in a vice. The vice tightens slowly, squeezing the fruit until eventually it bursts, and what come out? Orange juice. Not apple juice. Not lemon juice. Orange juice. The vice didn’t put something different in the fruit, it only exposed what was in there all the time. Our troubles do the same thing – when circumstances start to tighten around us, they serve to expose the lingering anger, doubt, and fear that is in our hearts. Our troubles expose our sin, and, by God’s grace, our sin leads us to Jesus again and again seeking His mercy.

4. Our troubles make us hope for more.

One other way our troubles lead us to Jesus is by reminding us that it’s not always going to be this way. There will come a day when we won’t cast our cares upon Him, because we won’t have any cares to cast upon Him. This is the day when all will be made right, when we will no longer see Jesus as through a dim pane of glass. This is when we will know the fullness of Him who says, “Look, I am making everything new” (Rev. 21:5).

Until then, these cares are an opportunity to long for that day even as we cast them upon Him.

God Loves a Cheerful Giver… So Should You Wait to Give?

Some people are excellent gift-givers. They are thoughtful, considerate, and attentive. They always seem to know exactly what a person would like, even if that person doesn’t know themselves. Gifts from people like this aren’t just presents; they are a showcase of how well a person know and cares for another.

What makes a person a great gift-giver? There has to be some natural talent to it, but it also has to be a skill they work at and pay attention to. In the end, though, I suspect one of the things that makes a person a great gift-giver is simply that they want to be one. To put it another way, they are great gift-givers because they enjoy it.

There is a cheerfulness about the way they give – not a grudgingness. No generic, store bought cards for folks like this – no, there is great thought and effort put into gifts, but that thought and effort is not done grudgingly – it’s done with enjoyment. Cheerfully. And knowing that cheerfulness is behind the gift only makes it all the more meaningful to the one receiving it.

And so now we come to a specific command in the New Testament around the topic of giving:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:6-7).

Of course God loves a cheerful giver, and we know why. It’s because a cheerful giver knows that all we have belongs to God anyway. A cheerful giver recognizes how richly God has blessed us. A cheerful giver is glad for the chance to participate in God’s mission and is happy for the opportunity to store up treasures in heaven.

No, we don’t have questions about why God loves a cheerful giver; the question is whether we should wait to give until we can do so cheerfully.

There are all kinds of reasons why we might struggle with the cheerfulness part. Times might be tough. Tuition payments might be coming due. There might be something else we have been saving for, and we’re going to have to delay that car or TV or whatever. And here is where we ought to draw the line between giving, even though it’s difficult, and giving out of a sense of obligation. Those are two different things.

By way of example, let’s say that you have a chance to give to a new ministry at the church. It’s going to take significant capital to get it off the ground, so you listen to some presentations, and you agree that the ministry is worthwhile. But then you look at your budget, and you recognize that if you are going to give to this it means that you’ll have to explain to your family that the vacations for the next two years are going to be less than what you’ve done in the past. You don’t like it; you aren’t cheerful about giving up your vacation. But you decide to go ahead and give anyway because you know it’s the right thing to do.

But then again, let’s say you’re in the same scenario. Same need. Same presentations. But you decide to give because you are worried how it will look if you don’t. And you think somebody will probably make you feel guilty if you don’t pony up.

These are two different scenarios, and in only the first one is giving the right thing, even though in neither case are you cheerful. So what’s the difference?

Faith. In the first scenario, you might not be cheerful about it now, but you act in faith. And most of the time, when we act in faith, even if our emotions aren’t quite there, it’s only a matter of time until the emotions catch up. You act, and then you feel. You do what Paul told the Corinthians – you aren’t giving reluctantly; you resolve to give and then you do it trusting that Jesus was right when He said that it is better to give than receive.

Giving is an opportunity, friends. Yes, it’s an opportunity to participate in the work of God, but it’s also an opportunity to put faith into action. Even if the faith is in that our emotions will catch up eventually.

 

2 Words that Help Us Humbly – But Confidently – Get to Work

Sometimes waiting is bad.

Let’s say, for example, that you have a neighbor with whom you have built a relationship with. You’ve watched football together, chatted over the fence, exchanged tips on smoking meat – and yet you know that in your neighbor there is a deep discontent and dissatisfaction with life. There is a hole in his heart, and you know the answer – it is, of course, the gospel.

So what are you waiting for? This is an issue you don’t really need to pray and try and find direction on. Jesus has already told us that we should go and make disciples. He has told us that we should be His witnesses. There isn’t a need to wait any more – open your mouth and share the hope that you have. In that situation, waiting is bad.

But other times waiting is good. And you don’t have to look far in the pages of Scripture to find examples of that.

Moses believed he was the deliverer, but he should have waited on God’s timing. Abram was to be the father of many nations, but he should have waited on God’s provision. Saul was chosen to be king, but he should have waited in God’s direction.

So how do we know the difference? Frederich Buechner once said that “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Buechner would advise us to just get moving, but we should still be a little careful.

We should be careful that we don’t presume upon God. We should be careful that we don’t move so quickly that we are trusting in our own plans and then asking God to come along behind us and bless them. So again we ask, how do we know the difference?

If we turn to the story of Esther, we find two words that are helpful in that regard.

To refresh your memory, Esther was a Jew, but had kept her ethnicity a secret. No one – not even her husband, the king – knew of her ancestry. But things in the land had reached a tipping point. Hamaan, the vengeful and evil advisor to the king, had put a plot in motion that would lead to the extermination of the Jewish people. Something had to be done, and maybe Esther was the one to do it.

But she could only move forward at great personal risk. She had not been in the king’s presence for some time, and going into this presence uninvited carried with it the penalty of death unless he pardoned the intrusion.

This is where we find the two words, spoken by Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, who was urging her to take some kind of action. Esther hesitated, and here is now Mordecai responded:

“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14).

“Who knows?” Those are the two words. Those are the two words that guard us from presumption, and yet move us to action at the same time. Those are the two words that recognize that unless God is in it, our best efforts lead to naught. They are, from that perspective, two words that combine the sovereignty of God with our own intentionality and effort.

“Who knows?”

These words keep us in the posture of humility and they are two words we would do well to remember as we make our attempts to do things for the sake of God’s kingdom.

So go ahead. Share the gospel. Start the ministry. Give of your resources. Do it because you know, in the broadest sense, that the action is the right thing even if you don’t know the way it will turn out. Because who knows? Perhaps your action will be the spark that the Lord has intended to use all along.

3 Things to Remember As You Submit Yourself to God

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up (James 4:7-10).

The summary command in these verses is pretty simple: Submit yourselves to God.

To “submit” means to “accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another.” When we submit to God, it means we acknowledge His authority over us and willingly give ourselves over and over again to Him.

It’s what we find Jesus doing as He prayed in the garden: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). Jesus, knowing what was before Him, acknowledged He would like another way for God’s will to be accomplished – something other than the cross. But despite that desire, He submitted Himself to God’s will. And in doing so, He not only accomplished what we could never accomplish for ourselves; He left us an example of what it means to submit our own selves to God.

You see that submission played out in the rest of the passage from James? How do we submit to God? Well, we wash our hands and purify our hearts, because it is God’s will that we should be sanctified. We grieve over our sin because it is God’s will that we should become like Jesus. And we humble ourselves before the Lord because it is God’s will that Jesus should receive all the glory due to Him.

But submitting ourselves to another is a dangerous thing, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why we have trouble with doing so not only to God, but also to anyone else in our lives. Because when we really, truly submit ourselves to another, we are putting ourselves in the hands of another. In that sense, submitting ourselves is an act of faith – we are believing that the one we are submitting to will not do us harm.

That’s why, in order for us to submit gladly to God, there are a few things we must remember. Things about who God is. To submit glady to God, we must remember that…

1. God is loving.

Why is that important if we are to gladly submit? It’s because we have to believe that God is our for our good. That He cares for us. That He is not going to take advantage of us when we submit to Him.

Unless we are convinced that God loves us, our submission will always be tinged with a little bit of “what if…” What will God do to me? What will happen in the future? Will God actually take care of me? Fortunately, God has left no doubt about His love:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).

2. God is strong.

It’s not enough for us to believe that God is loving; we must also believe He is strong. That’s because there might be plenty of people in our lives who love us, but can those people do anything about what’s happening in our lives? They might have great affection for us and yet not have any real power to do anything on our behalf.

But not God. God is not only loving; He is also strong. So we can gladly submit to Him, not only knowing He desires the best for us, but that He has the power to make it happen.

3. God is wise.

Here we find the other thing we must believe about God. Because He might love us, and He might be strong enough to work things for our good, but is He wise enough to know what actually is for our good?

Again, the answer is yes. But we must be careful here to not confuse things like comfort, prosperity, health, and earthly benefit with “good.” God is wise enough to know the difference. Because He is, we can know that in our submission, He is always working for our good, even if the road to that good is painful.

God is loving, strong and wise. And because He is, we are not only commanded to submit to Him; it is foolish not to do so.

Even When You Don’t Know the Steps, You Still Know the Way

Jesus talked about a lot of things, and thank goodness He did. He directly taught us about money, conflict, friendship, service, sacrifice, and a host of other things, all pointing us to our need of Him. Because He talked directly about these things, we can still – 2000 years later – take Him at His Word. That’s because the nature of the things Jesus talked about don’t change.

Yes, we may have cryptocurrency today instead of denarii, but money is still money. And the implications of money are still the implications. Based on the direct words of Jesus, we can know with a pretty good degree of certainty the steps we should take in how we treat money.

At the same time, though, there were lots of things Jesus didn’t talk about. We can’t turn to one of the gospels and find Jesus telling us about artificial intelligence, for example. We don’t find Him speaking directly as to how to vote in a democratic election. Neither do we find Him giving direct instruction about what kind of schools we should choose for our children.

Of course He didn’t. Because even though the words of Jesus are once and for all time, they were recorded for us in a specific day and time. It was a day and time in which things like streaming services and education choices and even career change were not really thought of. So of course Jesus doesn’t address these things.

But do you ever wish He did? You are going to face issues of complexity every single day. These will be relational, financial, organizational issues in which you are going to have to make decisions that will not only affect you but others. And for the vast majority of those issues, you don’t have the steps laid out for you in the Bible.

But even when you don’t know the steps, you still know the way.

Let’s take a practical example to flesh that out.

Let’s say that you are leading an organization, and you have to make some kind of pretty dramatic change. That change is going to involve creating new roles and laying off some people. New financial reports will have to be formed. Vision will have to be articulated. New processes instituted. It’s all very complicated and frankly, you aren’t sure you’re doing the right thing at all.

Because of the complexity, you certainly know if the steps are right. You’re just doing the best you can, putting one foot in front of the other, hoping you don’t mess things up too badly.

You don’t know the steps… but you do know the way.

Jesus didn’t tell you the specific steps to take, but He did both tell and show you the manner in which those steps should be taken. Here’s the way, if not the steps:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:25-28).

The “way” is the posture you should take as you take these steps; it’s the attitude and manner of what you do. In the scenario above, the steps involve all kinds of things, but the manner in which you take those steps is much simpler. It’s the way of lowering. The way of service. The way of not lording authority.

And so it is with most of the complex issues of our day, and of our lives. We rarely know the next – or even right – steps to take. But we almost always know the way.

2 Perspective Changes if We Are “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”

Psalm 139 is a psalm about the knowledge of God. The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth; there is nothing at all that is hidden from Him. He sees all; knows all; is before all. This is how David expressed the reality of God’s presence:

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you (Psalm 139:7-12).

That presence, and His knowledge, goes beyond nature; it extends to us. God not only knows us; He designed us. Put us together. With great intentionality. The psalm continues:

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them (Psalm 139:13-16).

What an amazing thing – that we – every single one of us – are fearfully and wonderfully made. It’s a realization that has big implications, but in the broadest sense, the truth of God’s intentional design of human beings means big things for the way we view ourselves, and the way we view others:

1. Ourselves.

If we are fearfully and wonderfully made, it should change the way we view ourselves. This is a good truth in our day and time because we live in an age of constant comparison. Social media has given us the ability to judge our looks, humor, intelligence, cleverness, and anything else against virtually anyone else in the world. And consequently, we have become very, very dissatisfied with the people we are. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that we have begun, in large part, to hate ourselves. Or at least parts of ourselves. This kind of self-hatred is an affront to the fact that we are fearfully and wonderfully made; it’s dishonoring to our Creator who made us in His own image.

Self-loathing is an inward defiance of the truth that God really did create us as individuals; that He really did form us intentionally; that He did not make mistakes in our physical and mental make up. For not only did God form and create us in a specific and wondrous way, He also gave us His Spirit, and along with Him comes specific giftings we are to put to use for the good of the body of Christ.

It’s not only okay, but actually good and right to recognize that we are valuable. Even more, to recognize that we are actually good at some things. When we admit those things, it’s not an act of pride; rather, it’s an acknowledgment that God made us in a specific manner, and we trust Him.

2. Others.

Being fearfully and wonderfully made not only changes the way we view ourselves; it changes the way we view others. It means that we are in no position to judge the relative worth of a human being, whether that person is in the womb or outside of it, or whether that person is in an assisted living facility or out of one. Every human being is fearfully and wonderfully made, and therefore we should treat every human being with respect and dignity.

It’s a respect that acknowledges that God has uniquely created this person, each one has a story, and we don’t have any idea for what purpose God might have connected us at that given moment. It is, as C.S. Lewis remarked:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

This truth – that God has formed and made each one of us with great purpose and intentionality – is not just an intellectual acknowledgment. It changes the way we view ourselves and extends to everyone else. For we are all – all – bearers of God’s image. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

Get Busy, Christian, But Be Careful As You Do.

“Get busy living’, or get busy dyin’.”

That’s one of the enduring quotes from the movie The Shawshank Redemption, a story about a man falsely imprisoned for two murders and his efforts to cope with his sentence and, eventually, execute a daring break for freedom.

It’s a quote that resonates with all of us at some level, especially if you find yourself living a life that feels like drudgery. It can be coupled with a bunch of other truisms as well:

Life is short.You can’t take it with you.You only live once.

The sentiment is roughly the same – we have a finite amount of time on our hands, and each moment gone is a moment we will never get back. So don’t wait. Do something.

Of course, there are very, very wrong ways to take that advice. But there are also very, very right ways to take it. In fact, it’s not that dissimilar to a word from Paul the apostle in Ephesians 5:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil (Eph. 5:15-16).

Of course, Paul isn’t talking about going bungee jumping or taking a vacation or buying the car you always wanted; his focus is on the gospel and taking every opportunity to extend the good news of Jesus. That’s the rightest right way to take the advice. 

So get moving, Christian. Do something. Serve. Help. Invest. Get busy living life for the sake of the kingdom. But how do we know if we are moving in the right direction? This is a legitimate question we should ask because even if our intentions are good, we might “get busy living” in the wrong direction.

Take Moses, for example. He wanted to get busy living. He wanted to see his people – God’s people – delivered from enslavement in Egypt. He wanted it so badly, in fact, that he took matters into his own hands and killed an Egyptian.

Or take Abram and Sarai. Abram had been promised that he would be the father of many nations, but time was ticking away, and still there were no children. They wanted to get busy living. They wanted it so badly, in fact, that Sarai told Abram to sleep with her servant, Hagar, so that this lineage could be started. They, too, took matters into their own hands.

So how can we, if we truly want to get busy living, try and make sure that we get moving in the right direction? At the risk of being too simplistic, the answer is that we get busy, but we get busy… 

Carefully.

That’s the word Paul used back in Ephesians 5. We should be careful how we live. But careful of what? Careful to not make a mistake? Careful to not associate with the wrong people? Careful not to squander the resources God has given to us? 

Yes, all those things, but also this – we should be careful not to presume upon the will of God. In the Book of James, we find this good word:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them (James 4:13-17).

Here we see that even as we try and get busy doing stuff, there may yet be pride and presumption lurking in our hearts. We make our plans, and then ask God to bless them, all the while we are trusting in our own strength, our own ingenuity, and our own resourcefulness. 

We should be careful. Careful of our own hearts, Of our own motives. We should be careful that we are not presuming upon the will of God.

So should we get busy living? Yes, we should. And yet we should do so with a very loose grip, always knowing that God will do what God will do. Our job is to follow after Him as we see Him leading, not to charge out in front and hope He will follow us.

One Thing You Must Remember if You Want to Walk Worthy of the Calling

Ephesians 4:1 bothers me: “Therefore, as a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received. . .”

You can almost hear the chains rattle with the words. Paul, having been arrested because of his commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, wrote these words from prison. Ever since his dramatic conversion, Paul had been relentlessly faithful. He was absolutely convinced that there was no more important message in the universe than the great, good news that our sins can be forgiven because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. He knew it. He experienced it. And he would not shut up about it. And now he was in jail, possibly the last “home” he would ever see.

It’s from there he wrote these words, first urging the Ephesians and now, us, that we should “walk in a manner worthy of the calling…”

And that’s troublesome to me. It should be troublesome to you as well, because how is that possible? How is it possible to walk in a worthy manner in light of what Jesus has done on our behalf?

If we look inside ourselves, our anxiety deepens, because we know us. We know how deep our sin runs, and we know how fail our resolve is. On a daily basis we find ourselves doing exactly what Paul described in another one of his letters:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing (Rom. 7:18-19).

In other words, there’s simply no way. There’s no way I can live up to the calling I’ve received. I know that today I’m going to be guilty of both sins of commission and sins of omission. And in my guilt, I will have once again proved myself unworthy. How do we deal with this command?

Our hope comes if we look backward. If you look at how Paul has described our calling up to this point in the book of Ephesians, you find this passage in chapter 1:

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” (v. 4-5).

God has indeed called us to be holy and blameless in His sight, but that holiness is predicated on what He has made us to be. Despite our sin, despite our “unworthiness,” God has adopted us into His family. God has made us something new – something His – and the calling is for us to grow into what we have already become. He has given us a crown as His sons and daughters and we are left to grow into it. In light of what He has made us, one of the most important ways to look at our calling is this:

We should remember who we are.

Every time we choose the way of holiness… every time we choose to embrace the fruit of the Spirit… every time we choose to submit ourselves to God… we are acting like the people we have already become. Conversely, every time we choose the way of disobedience it’s as if we put on a mark and act like someone we used to be.

How do we walk worthy of the calling we have received? We remember who we are. And then act like it.

The Call is to Serve… Them, Too

One of the defining qualities of Jesus is His servanthood. Maybe the most vivid picture of His service comes in John 13 when instead of choosing a place of honor at the last meal with His friends, He took up the towel and basin and washed the dirty, dusty, well-worn feet of His followers.

But He wasn’t just washing feet; He was giving a tangible example for His followers:

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:14-17).

Jesus did not hold onto his rights; Jesus did not demand his privilege; Jesus did not claim unjust treatment. He served, and He left that example of service for us to follow.

Now when we think about service, we usually think in terms of the work to be done. That’s a fine perspective to have – we look in our homes and ask what job might I do around the house. We look at the church and see which ministry needs our help. We look around at work and see what a task which is not pretty and will receive no acclaim needs doing and we volunteer. We do these things not only because they need to be done, but because we are following the example of Jesus.

But in addition to thinking about the specific “thing” that needs to be done, we also ought to consider the people who we are serving, and this is where it gets a little stickier. We serve in the nitty gritty at home for the sake of our spouses and children whom we love. We serve in the church, even if the job is thankless, because we have a great affection for God’s people. We serve at work because we believe in the mission and respect our coworkers.

But while service is a good thing in and of itself, we should be careful that our acts of service are not limited by the objects of our service.

Jesus taught us about service in another of the gospels, this time in Matthew 20. In that passage, Jesus was caught up in an argument instigated by the mother of James and John who wanted some assurances that her boys would be given a place of prominence in the kingdom Jesus was bringing. That request caused an argument to erupt in the other disciples, all of whom wanted to secure their own place of importance. This is how Jesus responded:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:25-28).

Here’s the thing, and the thing that points us to the objects of our service – the disciples who heard this teaching looked around, and who did they see? Who were the people there looking back at them? Who were the people most directly in their path to serve?

They were their competitors.

This is the call of Jesus – it is to not only serve those you love, those you respect, or those who are comfortable to serve – it is to serve those people who would gladly take your service as an opportunity to advance themselves. This was the attitude of the disciples that day. They were so fixated on improving their own station that they would gladly step on anybody who was foolish enough to lower themselves.

And here we see the truly counter-cultural call of Jesus. Too often we willingly serve, but we secretly do so based on the idea that serving will have some earthly benefit added to us. Our reputation will be enhanced, the compliments will flow, and we will be thought well of. But the call of Jesus is not to serve so that we might receive some kind of acclaim for doing so; indeed, it is to serve with the full knowledge that our service might actually be taken advantage of.

When we make that choice, we are truly following the way of Jesus. And we are trusting that the kind of greatness that Jesus offers is nothing like the kind of greatness we find on the earth.