Today's focus - verses 10-11: Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure.
Let us look at this verse, phrase by phrase:
Therefore... The 'therefore' refers to the previous verses. In other words, since you possess these qualities (goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love) in increasing measure, and you are not kept from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you have not forgotten that you have been cleansed...since this is true...then move to the following my brothers.
...my brothers, This is a call to the believers. Sure, most of Peter's audience were men, but this is a message for all followers of Christ.
...be all the more eager... Eager. Eager! When was the last time a spiritual notion made you 'eager'? When was the last time your church made you 'eager'? Remember, the Lord of all creation is calling you! So be 'eager'...
... to make your calling and election sure. God sent His Son to live, die, and live again. For you. For me. We are made in His image. He has sent His Holy Spirit to comfort, encourage, and strengthen you, and me. We should want, should we not, to be doing exactly what He has called us to do?
Think about it; if you are a parent, or a supervisor, and you need certain work done in a timely fashion, is it enough that those you have entrusted with those tasks follow their own priorities? If the trash can has to be on the curb by seven, and you instruct someone to do it, and they sweep the porch instead, is your will being accomplished?
Friends, we must be careful that we are doing what God calls us to do. We must be sure. It is not enough, it is not right, to busy ourselves with church work, if it is not what God has called us to do. And we can know! Since we possess these qualities (goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love) in increasing measure, we can be EFFECTIVE and PRODUCTIVE in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Questions:
1. Are you sure of your calling?
2. If so, how did that happen?
3. If not, what steps are you taking to know?
THOUGHTS ON CALLING
“Next to faith this is the highest art,
to be content with the calling in which God has placed you."
Martin Luther
"Serve God by doing common actions in a heavenly spirit,
and then, if your daily calling only leaves you cracks and crevices of time,
fill them up with holy service."
Charles Spurgeon
"Monastic vows rest on the false assumption that there is a special calling,
a vocation, to which superior Christians are invited to observe the counsels of perfection
while ordinary Christians fulfill only the commands;
but there simply is no special religious vocation since the call of God
comes to each at the common tasks."
Martin Luther
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