the_building_of_bable – We Love God!

Paul and James both say that we should rejoice in our trials because of their beneficial results. It is not the adversity considered in itself that is to be the ground of our joy. Rather, it is the expectation of the results, the development of our character that should cause us to rejoice in adversity. God does not ask us to rejoice because we have lost our job, or a loved one has been stricken with cancer, or a child has been born with an incurable birth defect. But He does tell us to rejoice because we believe He is in control of those circumstances and is at work through them for our ultimate good.

Jerry Bridges

The theological roots of this concept of “vocation” are found in the biblical doctrine of creation and divine sovereignty. We are by God’s creative decree shaped in His image and thus designed to reflect in all our endeavors the purposeful activity of God Himself. All Christians, therefore, should ideally embrace their “work”, however secular and uneventful it may appear, as a calling of God, a responsibility for which they have been uniquely endowed that is designed in its own way to glorify God. One’s “job” or “career” or “occupation” thus has a meaning beyond mere personal fulfillment. “Ministry” is therefore not what the majority of Christians perform as “a discretionary time activity – something done with the few hours that can be squeezed out of the week’s schedule after working, sleeping, homemaking, neighbouring, washing and doing the chores” (Stevens, The Other Six Days, 132). It is, rather, all of life when discharged in faith.

Sam Storms