In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle, Paul urges us to “live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1). This begs us to answer the question, “What is my calling?” This question has not crossed my path once or twice, but many times in my life. For many years, in my youth, I believed my calling was to be a worship leader. Yes, this is something that I am called to do, but it is not my “calling.”

Let me explain further, singing and leading worship is something that the Lord had gifted me with, but gifts can be taken away, the calling on our lives, however, can never be altered or demolished. Our calling is eternal, it will go on forever. I am not saying that missions or preaching or singing or ministry “a” “b” or “c” aren’t callings, in fact they are very important to the body of Christ and the Kingdom of God, I am merely saying that Paul is describing a deeper calling, one that is not dependent on our gifts or personalities, but a calling that every child of God is meant for.

 

 

 

“Be completely humble and gentle: be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:2-6).

 

“It was he(Jesus) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13).

 

Michelle Young

Trinity Christian Center Church

Sometimes the Holy Spirit will call you to do the most seemingly mundane things. Yet, on the other side of that coin, sometimes the Spirit will ask you to do something you see as impossible for you because if you obeyed, you would have to leave the comfort of your perfectly comfortable bubble of comfort, yikes! However, Monday, it seemed as though the Spirit was instructing me to do something that fit perfectly in the middle, not too easy and not too hard, but just uncomfortable enough that it called me to question whether or not I was going to talk myself out of it or act in obedience to God.

 

A friend that I had known from music school was on Facebook doing the well-known, “I’m leaving social media forever, or at least until I get bored, but seriously…” But something was different, a guy I had maybe talked about Jesus with a couple times, but acted mostly uninterested was saying he was leaving Facebook to draw nearer to God because he was being “spiritually attacked.” He had lost his dad, his mother a few years before, and been literally stabbed in the chest and hospitalized on two different occasions. He is only 27 years old. The guy, to say the least, had one of the worst, most trying years of his life.

 

That is when the Spirit started nudging me…and I was swatting it away like an annoying fly, but it was persistent, “call him.” So, I called him….no answer and a sigh of relief. “Email him.” Ok, Lord, I hear You. I emailed him, no answer for the rest of the day until that night when I got a phone call and it was him! I haven’t spoken to this guy in six years, I didn’t know what we were going to talk about, but I was certain God had something in mind.

 

After just a few minutes of the catching up, I learned that he was dealing with some forgiveness issues with his father that had recently passed, his siblings, and even some friends that had become estranged, but he was hungry for God and ready to hear what He had to say. I was looking through my Bible while we were talking so I could find some scriptures that lift him up or help and I came across Philemon. This “book” of the Bible was literally a page long and probably the shortest letter Paul had ever written…ever. But I had scribbled over and over the word “forgiveness” at the top. This was it! This is the direction God wanted me to point him in. “Read Philemon.”

 

Today, he emailed me with questions about what he had read. He wanted to know how this letter helped people forgive and why use slavery as an example? How did we know that Philemon forgave as Paul had instructed him to? So, this is how I responded:

 

 

Philemon is a friend of Paul’s, Phil came to Christ through Paul, and now Phil leads his own church out of his home.

 

Onesimus was Phil’s slave who ran away (punishable by death if Phil so chose in that day and age)

 

Onesimus was in prison with Paul and they became close and Onesimus came to Christ through Paul.

 

So, miracle #1 happens: Onesimus returns to Phil to accept his punishment, to do what was right because Onesimus did wrong by Phil (laying aside the wrongness of slavery, but I think Paul sort of addresses that as well).

 

Paul writes this letter to Phil, asking for miracle #2 by urging him to not punish Onesimus, but to rather embrace him as a brother…to forgive him.

 

We don’t know for a fact that Phil forgave Onesimus, however Paul lays on the pressure by telling Phil to prepare a room for him, Paul, because he was going to make a visit in the near future (probably to check on this very issue).

 

But laying aside the small picture themes of this letter, let’s look at the larger picture. Why is this letter even in the Bible? What do you think God had in mind for us to learn?

 

I would like to think that the overall theme is of course forgiveness, but that also, if the love dwells in you, that Christ can revolutionize any social relationship whether that be a father-son, sister-brother, or estranged friendship.

 

A couple of things I have taken away are one: God always has the greatest offense. There is nothing anyone could do to us that should offend us more than God can be offended by us and yet He forgave us for countless offenses and the ones that haven’t even happened yet. So, therefore, we should always forgive others because God has forgiven us. Plus the Bible mentions that if we withhold our forgiveness that forgiveness will be withheld from us.

 

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37) 

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. (Mark 11:25) 

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:12) 

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15) 

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32) 

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)

 

Two: You cannot separate the love of God and the love of people. If you love God, you love also the people created in His image. Regardless of whether or not someone has accepted Christ there is a little bit of God in everyone, every living soul on this earth bears his thumb print and we are all His creation. And Jesus charges us to love our neighbors (fellow humans), anyone we come in contact with, anyone God puts on our path, we are charged to love them….not change them, but love them.

 

 

 

“‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  (Mark 12:30-31)

 

“‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Mathhew 19:19)

 

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:18)

 

And I’ll end with this verse:

 

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,God lives in them and they in God. (1John 4:7-15)

 

And if we are to love people, we have to forgive people, not for them, but for us, that we may continue to love them and in doing so, love God.

 

~Michelle Young

Trinity Christian Center Church