A Simple Calling
“This much is certain; the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally - weakness, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guide of weakness.”
-Søren Kierkegaard
The life of a Christian is not an easy one. Nor is it the “Sunday-Christian” type life, one of believers simply going to church and singing hymns with the rest of the crowd, then returning home and setting God and His Word aside until Sunday; something that is so often portrayed, and even lived in the lives of so many who claim to be followers of Christ. Christianity is not a small prayer of giving your life to Christ, then continuing to live a day to day existence just like the rest of this earth. It is a commitment to follow Christ and strive to do His bidding, to bring his love and salvation to all of the earth. For He is the God who saved you; who looked upon your broken and disgusting state, who saw you revelling in your filth and self-destructive path, and, choosing to look beyond all of that, He saw your soul - the soul that He Himself created for His glory. God saw you, and instead of being repelled, His heart broke in love for you, so much love that He sent his Son to die, so that your sin might be atoned and you could spend eternity with Him.
With that in mind, do not make light this new life you have been given in Christ. 1 Corinthians 5: 17 says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Your old self, the one that loved the filth and sin of this world so much that you were blinded to the death it would bring you, has been created new. This world no longer owns you, nor the weight of your sin or the fate of your human state. All has been cleansed with the blood of Jesus. Galatians 4:8-9 says
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you return to the weak and worthless elementary principles of this world, whose slave you want one more to become?”
You were once a slave to this world and it’s pleasures. But God saw you, and he chose to KNOW YOU. To accept you, as the beautiful soul and person that He created you to be. Your Father has looked upon your life, and the mess that it has become due to the curse of sin and your own wicked flesh, and he desired that you leave this path of self-destruction. He made himself known to you, and in doing so has provided a second chance to live this life the way he intended; to bring glory to Himself. Thus, how can you fall back into your old habits, even your old life, when God, an infinite being who loves and cherishes you as His child, has chosen to pull you from that existence, the curse into which you had been born?
Therefore, what are you going to do? You have been blessed with an opportunity to live your life the way it was intended; in a relationship with the eternal God. How can that fact, that simple truth of your salvation, not be the most clear and noticeable thing about you? Worse, how is that not lived in your day to day existence?
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard had some powerful words when it came to this topic. Kierkegaard saw life as an either/or option. He believed that the life of a Christian, the truth and the reality of what a Christian believes was both irrational and anti-cultural, and thus needed to be treated with severity. To Søren, it was not true Christianity to be “somewhat” religious - religious to some extent. Because either Jesus died and was resurrected to wash away the curse of your sin, or He was not. Either/or. According to Kierkegaard, if He really did die for your sake, for all of our sakes, then that fact, this simple yet crippling fact, should permeate your entire life.
To continue on Galatians 4, verses 10-11 say this: “You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.” And just a few verses later, in verse 12: “Brothers, I beg of you, become as I am…” Paul is beseeching the Galatians to cast off the weight of the law and the rudimentary, worthless principles of this world and to live with the goal of the kingdom of God in mind always, as he himself had done.
You have been given a new chance at life. And this time, you are no longer bound by this world or it’s rules. The only thing that controls you is God and His law. Friends, live in such a way! Our God has pulled us from the ashes of our sin and given us pure soul and a promise of eternity in His presence. That is the truth of your salvation. The very simple, yet oh so profound truth. A crippling truth. For we have been known by God; touched and changed by the lover of our souls, who now resides within us. Let us take this new life and the simple, life changing truths that come with it, along with our freedom in the death of Christ, and let us live with nothing other than God and the furtherment of his Kingdom in our minds!
This is the truth and reality of the Gospel, the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
How can you continue to exist “normally” after such a wonderful and incredible life changing experience?
So. What should this look like? How should a Christian live in his day to day life? This is illuminated in much of the New Testament: in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus puts things very simply for us: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” This is what is known as the Great Commission - some of Jesus’ last words before He ascended to heaven following his resurrection. Jesus also says in Matthew 22: 37-40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus tells us, quite simply actually, to love God and everyone around us, our neighbors in this life. And what is more loving than trying to show our neighbors, our friends, and our fellow humans, our fellow creations of the one true God the same love that He has shown to us? This is our truest calling. Our simplest calling.
This is also a call to great sacrifice, however. Jesus states in Matthew 19:21 “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” This life to which Jesus has laid claim is no longer ours; thus we must be willing to lay down everything to further Him and His kingdom.
To once again quote Jesus, Luke 14:33-35 states the following words: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
This is the simplest of all simple truths. If you are not willing to give everything away - your possessions, your money, your land, your freedom, your life - if you are not willing to sacrifice it all, to take up your cross and follow Jesus, you cannot be a disciple, a follower, of Jesus Christ. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Ephesians 5:1-2
Written By, Cooper Gagne
