Faith and Work on Called By God

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Exodus 3:10-12, 1 Samuel 3:8-10, Matthew 4:18-20, Acts 9:3-6, 2 Timothy 1:9, Psalm 139:13-16

Older notions of vocation and vocational development assumed that people wrestled with matters of vocation as a young adult. It has been commonly assumed that vocational counseling was provided in hig...

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The Power of Divine Calling

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Exodus 3:1-12, Isaiah 6:1-8, Matthew 4:18-22, Acts 9:1-19, Romans 8:28-30, Psalm 139:13-16

God calls people. Whether it is the calling of Abraham to leave the land of Ur and go he knew not where, or the calling of Moses, confronted with the burning bush, or the calling of Isaiah who encount...

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O God, our Guide and Guardian, you have

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O God, our Guide and Guardian, you have led us apart from the busy world into the quiet of your house. Grant us grace to worship you in Spirit and in truth, to the comfort of our souls and the upbuild...

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Oh Lord, our Lord, When you called your

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Oh Lord, our Lord, When you called your child Abraham out of Ur, You were beginning a new project in human history. You were creating a new people. A people who would be known as salt and light, A peo...

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Vocation: A Calling From God

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Exodus 3:10-12, Isaiah 49:1, Romans 11:29, Matthew 4:18-19, Ephesians 4:1, Psalm 139:13-16

I can lose my job; I might be released from a position. My career can come to an end when I retire from the organization I work in. But my vocation comes from God; it remains and is not in the end som...

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Reformers' Impact on Modern Spirituality

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Genesis 2:15, Exodus 31:1-6, Proverbs 16:3, Matthew 25:14-30, Colossians 3:23-24 , Psalm 127:1

Noteworthy in this regard is the contribution of the Reformers, particularly Martin Luther, though John Calvin’s contribution is also very significant. Both called for a spirituality in the world that...

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Jesus: You gave us Your love at a high

Author

Richard Herman

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1 Timothy 2:1-4, 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Hebrews 13:20-21, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 5:20

Jesus: You gave us Your love at a high price – Your own death on the cross in our place! By Your grace you give us eternal life and entrust to us Your creation. Thank You, Lord! We come today as Y...

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The Glory of What We’re Meant to Be

Author

R. Kent Hughes

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John 14:23, John 10:27, Isaiah 40:8, John 15:10-11, Psalm 100:2

Elisabeth Elliot once stayed in the farmhouse of a Welsh shepherd and his family high in the mountains of North Wales. She stood watching one misty summer morning as the shepherd on horseback herded t...

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Author

N. T. Wright

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We are made for God: for God’s glory, to worship God and reflect his likeness. That is our heart’s deepest desire, the source of our deepest vocation.

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Stewarding Our Work

Author

Kara Martin

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Pastors work hard and those outside of ministry (and maybe within) may miss that it is labor , a job , their share in Adam's gift of work. We're excited to share this devotion from Kara M...

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What Is Our Calling, Really? Thoughts From the Founder's Desk

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Work

I mentioned last week that I spent time recently with friends from college, and this group loves asking deep questions about life and faith. During our time together, we had some assigned reading by...

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Seeing the Value of Their Work

Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Genesis 2:15, 1 Kings 5:13-18, Colossians 3:23-24, Ephesians 4:28, Matthew 25:31-40, Psalm 90:17

After attending a conference in New York City, a pastoral colleague, Reid Kapple, was flying home to Kansas City on US Airways flight 745 when the plane suddenly lost cabin pressure. As the plane desc...

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Author

Gene Edward Veith Jr.

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Thus a Christian finds himself called to drab and lowly tasks, which seem less remarkable than monastic life, mortifications, and other distractions from our vocations. For him who heeds his vocation,...

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Blowing Through Stop Signs: Why Keeping the Sabbath Is So Important

Author

Dan Baumgartner

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Exodus 20:null, Deuteronomy 5:null

Ignoring God's Stop Sign Have you ever been driving and inadvertently blown right through a stop sign? It happened to me recently. Anne and I were down in San Francisco meeting some friends, I w...

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Adapted from Exodus 3

Author

Austin D. Hill

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Scripture

Exodus 3:6-8

The Lord says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I have surely seen the affliction of my people. I have heard their cry, for I know their s...

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Adapted from Isaiah 56

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Isaiah 56:null

Leader: Thus says the Lord: "Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon My salvation will come, and My deliverance will be revealed. People: "To those who keep My sabbath, who choose...

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The Truth They Were Hiding

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:11, Exodus 33:18–23, Isaiah 55:6–9 , John 1:1–14 , Acts 17:22–31, Psalm 42:1–2

Many have heard of the polymath and famous atheist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), whose career as a public intellectual touched on a variety of disciplines, including philosophy (he is considered one o...

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Rejection & A Psalm of Praise

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

1 Samuel 16:1-13 , Habakkuk 2:2-3, Matthew 17:20, Romans 5:3-5 , Philippians 4:6-7 , Psalm 42:11

In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...

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God Became Flesh and Built Something

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

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Scripture

Mark 6:3

Jesus also spent time—decades even—building stuff. Jesus was a tradesman. He is called a tekton (Mark 6:3), a builder who used his hands. God came to earth and apparently thought it worth his while to...

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Author

Dan B. Allender

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We're in the presence of a good story when the flaw that shatters shalom is also the doorway to redemption... Whether it be our own flaw or the sin of others, God uses the raw material of sin to c...

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Author

William Stringfellow

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Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, ...

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Listen to your Life

Author

Frederick Buechner

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Scripture

Psalm 118:24, Colossians 3:17, Matthew 6:34, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Proverbs 3:6, James 1:17

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

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A Seed of Wanting to Be the Boss

Author

Walter Brueggemann

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Scripture

Mark 10:42-45

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone. Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the...

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An Uncle Tries to Buy Salvation

Author

David Peterson

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Scripture

2 Kings 5:1-14, Proverbs 11:4, Zephaniah 1:18, Acts 8:9-24, Isaiah 64:6

A little girl once wrote a letter to an advice column in the Newspaper. In it, she tells a story about her uncle and aunt. “My uncle was the tightest man I ever met.” She said. “All his life, every ti...

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Three Images for Retreat

Author

Ruth Haley Barton

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Scripture

Mark 6:30, Luke 4:, Hosea 2:14-15, Hosea 11:1-2, Psalm 23:1–3, Luke 4:1–13

Ron Roheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times. ● There is the lonely place to which Jesus ...

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Not All Who Wander are Lost

Author

Travis Dickinson

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Scripture

Exodus 3:1-15, Genesis 12:1-9, Job 1:42, Psalm 139:, Acts 9:1-19

In the novel The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, there is a poem called the “Riddle of Strider.” One stanza goes like this: All that is gold does not glitter; Not all who wan...

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The Only Opinion That Matters

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth, but have you ever heard of Babe Pinelli? Pinelli was an umpire in Major League Baseball who once called The Great Bambino (Ruth) out on strikes. When the crowd bega...

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To Remember & Observe: Sabbath in a Jewish Home

Author

A. J. Swoboda

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We must begin by remembering. If you journey into a contemporary Jewish home prepared for Sabbath, you will likely encounter two candles lit by (more often than not) the woman of the home. On Friday e...

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A Coca-Cola Philosophy & Empty Calories

Author

A. J. Swoboda

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Studies reveal that 37 percent of Americans take fewer than seven days of vacation a year. In fact, only 14 percent take vacations that last longer than two weeks. Americans take the shortest paid vac...

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The Broad Reality of Vocation

Author

Steven Garber

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The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and glo...

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