{"id":26531,"date":"2023-05-29T22:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T05:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ephesians-3_14-21-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-05-16T15:08:04","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T22:08:04","slug":"ephesians-4_1-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ephesians-4_1-6\/","title":{"rendered":"You Have A Calling From God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ephesians\u00a0 4:1-6 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ephesians 4:1-6.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Ephesians<\/strong>\u00a04<\/strong>:<\/strong>1<\/strong>\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1<\/sup>\u00a0As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse\u00a01: \u00a0God has a calling on your life.\u00a0 A calling is an invitation from God to live your life for a purpose bigger than yourself, for God’s purposes.\u00a0 In individualistic Western society, we must be careful not to forget that the “you” Paul speaks of here is not to one individual person, but to a community of believers.\u00a0 So not only do you as an individual have a calling from God, but you and your brothers and sisters at church have a calling together\u00a0as a spiritual family.\u00a0 At Thrive, we speak of that calling in terms of 5 words: Alive, Expectant, Involved, Outloud and United.\u00a0 Together as a church family we are called to worship Jesus (“Alive”), grow more like Jesus (“Expectant”), serve Jesus with our talents (“Involved”), lead others to Jesus (“Outloud”) and love Jesus’ family (“United”).\u00a0 You have a calling from God!<\/p>\n

Ephesians 4:2-6 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0There is one body and one Spirit– just as you were called to one hope when you were called–
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 2-6: \u00a0How do you live a life worthy of your calling from God?\u00a0 It begins not with the things you do, but with the kind of person you are.\u00a0 In verse 2, Paul identifies\u00a04\u00a0character traits we should seek to develop every day to help us live lives worthy of our calling:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Be humble<\/strong>\u00a0(v2).\u00a0 Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.\u00a0 It’s putting God\u2019s interests and others\u2019 interests ahead of your own, not living as if you are the centre of the universe.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Be gentle\u00a0<\/strong>(v2).\u00a0 Remember that gentleness (or meekness) does not mean weakness.\u00a0 It means being in control of your emotions. Gentleness is strength under control.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Be patient\u00a0<\/strong>(v2).\u00a0 You don’t fulfill your calling overnight, but over a lifetime.\u00a0 So be patient with yourself, with others, and with God’s timing.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Bear with others in love<\/strong>\u00a0(v2).\u00a0 Part of fulfilling your calling is learning to work with others.\u00a0 We can all be difficult from time to time.\u00a0 That’s why Paul emphasizes that we must “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (v3).\u00a0 In other words, stay united with your brothers and sisters.\u00a0 Fight for the unity of your church by loving one another well, putting up with one another, and staying committed to one another.\u00a0 It’s about remembering that we are called to the same thing:\u00a0 one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father and Lord of all to whom we are called (v4-6).\u00a0 We have so many more important things in common than we have differences between us.<\/p>\n

Father God, thank You that I have a calling from You.\u00a0 I pray that I would live a life worthy of that calling.\u00a0 Every day may I be humble, gentle, patient, and loving toward others, especially my church family.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ephesians 4:1-6.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Ephesians\u00a04:1\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.<\/p>\n

On verse\u00a01: \u00a0God has a calling on your life.\u00a0 A calling is an invitation from God to live your life for a purpose bigger than yourself, for God’s purposes.\u00a0 In individualistic Western society, we must be careful not to forget that the “you” Paul speaks of here is not to one individual person, but to a community of believers.\u00a0 So not only do you as an individual have a calling from God, but you and your brothers and sisters at church have a calling together\u00a0as a spiritual family.\u00a0 At Thrive, we speak of that calling in terms of 5 words: Alive, Expectant, Involved, Outloud and United.\u00a0 Together as a church family we are called to worship Jesus (“Alive”), grow more like Jesus (“Expectant”), serve Jesus with our talents (“Involved”), lead others to Jesus (“Outloud”) and love Jesus’ family (“United”).\u00a0 You have a calling from God!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26534,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26531\/revisions\/26534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}