Tag Archives: vocation

March 11, 2022 · 4:01 pm

What is our Vocation,Oh Christians?

I find it very relevant for this question to be asked on a daily basis.

We will always have usual answers such as we are to take care of our family,Have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, but it is when we have achieved this foundation of our ‘Job’ that we sit in our chairs and just enjoy our success. What makes it really bad in God’s eyes, is when we desire all those accessories to go along with basic needs, because we are not content.

I am afraid that this mindset is precipitated by the world, but also our religions. We are proclaiming our ‘fruitfulness’ in our God that says we are ‘blessed’ to be worshiping our God. I personally cringe when people get these xtra toys, or have traveling fancies and go see the world because they are ‘free’ from their humanity obligations. Is this what we are being taught in ‘our’ church’s?

If so, you wonder why God is not achieving his eternal purpose here on earth!

This pillar of Christ is one of the reasons that I left the institutional church, there was no understanding about what the ‘christian’ was or to be in God’s Kingdom! It is this understanding that is being lost in the model of ‘the body’ that has gotten us in this quagmire of a rut. We are continuing to do the same things over and over in our little ‘meetings’ without actually being ‘in the world’, to shine our light.

I am saddened when I do hear from friends or people that are exploited their gains over the years and throwing their enjoyments from sea to shining sea. I say this because I see it. and I hate it. I have been first hand acknowledgment to some of these things in various church’s that I have been in.

One such example was in a church that had a ‘program’ to give everyone this sunday a $25 gift card to ‘do’ what ever they wanted too do with it. The intention was to be an example of ‘the christian’ to ‘give’ to the needy or to make an influence on someone. Although the concept was right, it was not to be done ‘by’ the church, but thru the church by it’s body of believers. It is this that the individual believer is to ‘see’ the need on its daily journey to find and help. This is where the light is shone, and ‘seen’ by the world. Another issue, the one that I see as a real problem, in the institutional church is that ‘they’ cannot see themselves past their noses. There was quite a few people in the congregation that were hurting for money in various ways. Yet, the ‘church’ failed to ‘see’ it. Their a were a few of us that knew of one hurting family that we pooled our gift cards together and gave them to the family.

My belief is really in the concept of the Corporate Body of God, This after all is God’s intention for his creation, but I am in the belief that it is built by that one rock at a time method, Peter being the first rock next to Jesus Christ,the cornerstone. The IC* has failed in doing this or even explained it in all these centuries, thus it is in the condition that it is. My belief in the individual christian(true believer) can be seen as ‘rock’ in the world to show their ‘light’ to whomever comes by, and be a way to stay in the light. God uses this illustration for a reason with Peter for a reason with it being a shadow of meaning for his Body. It was the individual piece of the puzzle that when we build them all together that it builds the body of Christ. Gods scriptures are amazing in showing shadows and goldmines of wisdom in it.

The first example of our vocation is surprise, surprise given to us in the first two chapters of the bible. God creates His world, with man in it,all the beauty and accessories around it with animals,food, and a garden. His instructions is to keep it going, all of the above, forever and ever.

*Institutional Church

fyi -For reference of my past. I am a PK,Preachers Kid, that has been ‘in’ the church realm for 50 years when I left the building. I have been on both sides of fence of being on boards, and in the pew. so I have seen and heard everything.

Advertisement

1 Comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, Kingdom of God

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 10, 2022 · 2:23 pm

Oh, How shall we live?

This seems to be a question that is always asked from the beginning of the resurrection of Jesus time. What do we do now?

Man has been asking questions, theorizing the who’s and what for’s ever since. I for once believe that there was a reason for this.

It is almost like when something happens to us in our lives, and we ask why did that happen? We will let it ponder in us to ‘blame’,or reason on why it could of happen to us. It is a monumental moment to find what the reason was to the incident to us. It could be days,months,or years before the logical understanding of why ‘it’ happened.

I believe this is what happened to the believers of the ‘way’ and their Messiah. What was the reason for Christ’s dying on a cross, and then rising up out of a grave and coming to life and showing his humanness to his followers.

If there was one question, there was a thousand questions to be asked.

Followers of the ‘Messiah’ were perplexed and bewildered of what to do or say in there Savior’s death and then a amazing resurrection. Why did Jesus die? Why did He arise? Even Jesus’s disciples were in awe to what it meant.

It seems that we are still asking these things to ourselves and to others. Our reasoning of the situation, has baffled us even with the theologians and their exegesis of the scriptures. It is this that we need to bring in the context of the times and what it meant for them.

Rom 12:1

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Unchecked Copy Box Rom 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

These two verses in Romans is a strong hint in what we are to do because of Jesus’s death and resurrection for all believers. This Apoplectic event was a ‘life’ changing moment in the life of mankind. It was/is a life changing alternative that will effect us all.

These verses, if we look close at them, will give us hints of what changed because of Christ’s death and resurrection. These two verses have the influence of the old covenant’s example to be used as a blueprint for the new.

Let’s start first with the middle of the first verse, “to present your bodies a living and Holy sacrifice,”, the ‘concept’ of a sacrifice is one used for the people to give in the old covenant was for their daily forgiveness of their transgressions. The bulls,lambs,goats were the sacrifices that were used then to accomplice this task. Christ was the ‘High Priest’ that gave ‘His’ own sacrifice as one that was the ‘High Priest’ in the Temple, giving a sacrifice for Israel’s whole nation. It is in ‘this’ sacrifice that has led to what our next step is to be. Christ’s example for us to follow as it was in the covenant of old.

This is to be the Holy and ‘acceptable’ vocation for us to follow. This ‘way’ is to be our daily spiritual Worship. It is not anymore to be a one of a human way to ‘sacrifice’ animals for our transgressions, but one of ‘our’ living the life of a ‘Holy’ one, We are now ‘white’,blemish free,Holy, as ‘like’ if we were Holy enough to go into the Holy of Holies. As if maybe we were now, a ‘Priestly’ one to be considered.

Spiritual Service of Worship. This tale statement at the end of verse one is one completing the thought. This small but powerful thought is also a ‘new’ vocation. This is changing of the ways of worship from the bringing the ‘animal sacrifices’, to actually ‘being’ the sacrifice in our ‘living’ as one that is truly ‘Holy’ and righteous, and a representative of Christ.

What this means, is somewhat hard to ‘see’ because we have been stuck in our ways. We are still in our ‘old’ ways of the old covenant. Our ‘worship’ has been hijacked into the believing that our ‘worship’ is still confined to the inside of a temple! Our vocation was and is to be a light among the darkness into the whole world.

Which brings us to the 2nd verse that I believe is the most troubling one that we have failed to utilize in our journey of Christ. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” We have not been transformed by the renewing of our minds! It is this that is not completing the union with Christ and his body. Our minds have not been ‘changed’ into that believing and ‘knowing’ God’s eternal purpose of his body. We are not transformed into ‘knowing’ Christ’s body and it’s function. The function of the body of Christ is intertwined together with the Head. It is made up of the same ‘Spirit’ and eternal purpose that God instituted.

The ‘will’ of God is not for the human way but for the Spirit led way of God. This an important thing to remember in our vocation, it is not in our humanly ways but in God’s New Kingdom it is God’s Spirit that drives our Lives.

We are not to put ‘New Wine’ into Old skins for it will only tear the old one apart!(paraphrased)

Is this what we are doing in Christianity?

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, New Perspective

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 1, 2022 · 12:55 pm

Grass roots

I am going to come at this from a different angle.

What ‘we’ created in the garden of eden was, in reality another world, a world made by us, according to us, and for us. It’s that simple. Our way was going to be best. Designed for us and lived by us.

No matter the cost.

You see this is the world that God-less people have created. It has created some good things that we see as good.(notice that this is exactly what happens when you eat from the “knowledge of good and evil”) And as you look outside your window, you can see all the bad we have created over the last 8,000 yrs(depending your view of earth). This all was our choice back then and even today, we still feel the freedom to make our own laws for ourselves and for others, or for entire countries. We are Free!

This is the world in which we are fighting as christians to change back to God’s ‘Heaven’ structure.

But how is this going to be done. What we learn from Jesus in the New Covenant(I prefer this, over testament) is that change to the New covenant and to the New Kingdom will be created not by the way of the world’s view of getting your way of things either by war,strong arming,or laws but of just the opposite of ways. Using the paradigm, it will be the opposite of everything that you as a person of flesh will think, it will now be thought of as spirit of knowledge and wisdom of God that leads us. Christ is now, He is now in our spirit leading our worship and desires for his kingdom. It is Us and Him, together changing back the realm of His world to the way it was as in the Garden of Eden.

This picture that we are to create in the world in our own little community is the same one that Mary encountered when she was checked on the open tomb of Jesus, and saw no one in there. It was when she turned around to tell someone about his disappearance, thought she was talking to the ‘gardner’ not Jesus. John 20.14-15. This picture is not often seen thru the average christian see’s this as the beginning of a ‘New Kingdom’, Jesus back in the garden, gardening as if He had never left.

God’s desire is to get back to this scenario, it is His creation to ‘see’ this as the finality of the Eternal Purpose. Just as Jesus was gardening as the New Creation had just developed, we too should be gardening in our ‘New Creation’ doing our Vocation as God gave us to do in the first instructions for us in the realm of the garden.

Let us take our vocation as our life long duty to live up to God’s desire. Be His creation. Live for Him,Worship Him as our author and designer. Do not hide in the walls of a building, but be in the fields, streets, neighborhoods, let your ‘light’ shine to the world, your community, to start that little pocket of the world, for all to see, and to expand as others start their own little pockets of this New Kingdom, in which it will someday be all united as one, One New Kingdom, Of God our Savior!!

Leave a comment

Filed under Kingdom of God

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 27, 2021 · 6:30 am

Why do you believe?

If you don’t ask yourself this on a regular basis, you need too!

You need to confirm to yourself that this is exactly what you believe and why. This is should be an affirmation to your faith in God. This is daily thing. God’s eternal purpose has traveled down a winding road thru many a centuries to get His blueprint down to us and all of mankind. God has worked thru many people,many leaders, many enemies to get us to where we are now.

God is in control. God has created man, God has put up with man’s rebellion, man’s inability to work with God and live up to his potential. God’s image has taken over itself as a life of its own. We have made our own world,our own rules and our own lives.

This is a road that alot of us have taken. But it is when we sit back and look at God and His purpose and we try to see what God has in store for us that we realize that It was a hard road but it was an easy one. We have to not really rest on our laurels and ‘seek’ out him in all our ways. This is just not about our taking up the gauntlet of our forefathers, but seek him out for ourselves as if was brand new and fresh. Questions need to be asked all over again.

Who is our creator?

Why did He create us?

What is an Image Of God?

Who is an Image of God?

What is our vocation?

What is the body of Christ?

What is the Kingdom of God?

Who is the World?

What is Love?

Why Me?

These are some things worth our time to think on, these things are an macro view of God’s eternal purpose. We are the players in this drama of life and times of God’s people. We are important to the story, all of us.

One thing that has got to change in our very acute way of thinking about God, this story is about Him, his all saving Grace for his creation and His Kingdom. We have seem to think that it is us that sets the rules and regulations on when are where we do things for this or that. God’s Kingdom does not work like that. God’s ways are simple- Love me, Love your neighbor. This is God’s Kingdom, five simple words.

It is time to get out of that box that we worship in and also the thinking box to actually ‘see’ what God really is!

He cannot be confined. He is everywhere, everywhere we are, He is there also. This is the story of Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22.

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, Kingdom of God, New Perspective

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 9, 2021 · 12:21 pm

Vocation?

This word is really not used much in the world today. At one time it was. If I remember it correctly, it was used alot in the school systems in the terminology for the question to a student by the counselor in referencing “What vocation are you going to be striving for in your school path”? It was one of those questions that every student answered by saying “I don’t know”.

It was back in those days that the emphasis of life as a student was not just to go thru high school, then to college to get a piece of paper to say you have a piece of paper for a job, but was given some alternatives as learning and practicing a career in school with word working, metal working, FHA, Future entrepreneurs, or their were others in different schools. It was just a way to start on something that a student already was doing in school to continue in life as a part of the community.

The emphasis for the last 30-40 years has been that the only route to life is going thru the college scene. Which is a shame because not everyone is cut out to be a student of the academics and all that it entails. Anywhere from 2 to 10 years of your life is compressed into just learning a degree for a particular field, only to realize at the end of that experience it isn’t for you!

What if we all have failed to realize that ‘OUR’ Vocation has already been given to us from the time we were born. Yes, it was, and is. Just maybe we have just took this upon ourselves that we ‘thought’ that we knew what we were doing, but it really doesn’t seem like it, if you look around the world.

Let me tell you what it is.

Genesis 1: 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [fn]sky and over every living thing that [fn]moves on the earth.”

See. It has always been right there in front of our eyes, and we failed to see it or even worse, just do it!

Be fruitful and multiply…… We have done this fairly well it seems if we look at the world’s population. It is the next part that we have had the biggest issue in trying to accomplish.

Subdue it……. ‘To bring under control’. This seems to be the really hard one to understand or to work on. But let’s not look at it from our perspective from today, but of in the context of the moment of adam and eve. God told them that this was their vocation for the life. To reproduce and take care of the creation. How hard could that of been? Really. What is more outstanding is the fact that they were living in the Garden of Eden. It was the creation in a nutshell right in front of you with God already had all the plumbing done for the world, water from below and from above to drink for the garden. Their was no weeks! Thank goodness. It was an Oasis, a Paradise with perfectness all around you.

So what was the problem? Man was not content in this scene from God. Man wanted to create and own his own world to run it his own way! We know how this ends up!

So Why did we not just go with the vocation from God from the beginning of the Garden of Eden? God created us, man and women to be fruitful and to multiply, to subdue it, and be in charge of everything that was created by God above us,below us, and with us. Why,Why did we not do this?

You be the judge on this, why did we not want the vocation of taking care of the garden of eden? More importantly is the question why don’t we do this now, knowing that this is our vocation ever since we were born!

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, New Perspective

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 24, 2020 · 9:58 am

Where do we go from here?

Is this a wake up call for us? Should we change? If this effects everyone in the world, should I change? Alot of new and different questions to think about in our life.

The biggest thing that I see and perceive with society, and even christians is that we all have problems with the idea of rest. We don’t know what to do with ourselves when we don’t have work, or we don’t have a schedule of things to do in our normal life. There is no indication that we cannot just rest just for the sake of rest.

Using this as a marker, we need to see why the need exists, why we feel the need to do. It has been ingrained in us for centuries, thru many reasons, sometimes being no fault of ours. There is this need to just be busy, to work, to play, to go and not to be still.

Rest is talked about in the scriptures multiple times, in fact it is mentioned almost 300 times in the NASB. The bulk of the time the ‘rest’ is mentioned in the old testament, which should tell us that emphasize was there with the Israelites from early on in their journey with God. But why? Why would or should we be concerned with the notion of ‘rest’.

Let me digress here for a moment, I have always had a few questions about groups of people or individual’s that didn’t look back at their heritage or their history to see if their were problems that they had created or were not going along with what God had deigned them to do, and why they didn’t see this. This is one of those moments, and questions I have for the Israelite’s.

If God had designed a world for us and the only thing that we were to do, was to rest with God, why would we do anything else?

God’s design for us, or for a better word to use is our ‘vocation’ in this world was to be an ‘image’ of God , which leads us to vision us as image in the God’s world. Ironically, this is exactly the picture we see later with God’s, chosen people, the Jewish people, the Israelite’s in their Temple model, that God set up for them to be ‘near’ him. Just one dot, in the whole world, as opposed to being with his people in all of the world.

And we still can’t see this in our world today!

Leave a comment

Filed under Kingdom of God

Tagged as , , , , , , ,