What is God’s Calling For You?

God calls everyone, and He calls for a reason. He wants this call to impact your life and those around you. But if we’re foggy on how He calls, or what a call is, we may stay too busy or not even hear it.

Here’s the fundamental question: What did He make you to do?

Called to a Person

God calls us, first, to a Person. Ephesians 1:18: “Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.”

And 1 Corinthians 1:9: “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” You have been called into personal relationship with God the Father, through the work of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Called to a Purpose

Second, God calls us to a purpose. Ephesians 4:13: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

The purpose is Christlikeness, being conformed to the image of His Son. God’s number one agenda is not where you work, not what you do in the Church. God’s number one agenda is to call you, first to Himself, and second, to a purpose.

Called to a People

Third, God calls us to “a people.” Ephesians 4:2-3 contains four different words about relationships. And they’re all about getting along with other people: with all humility, with all gentleness, making every effort to maintain the unity of the body of Christ and the bond of peace.

He gives spiritual gifts to believers. Why? “To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). He wants you to be a part of other people becoming like Christ. You are called to that.

Called to a Process

The fourth calling is the calling into a process. You will be about as holy as you want to be. Everything you need to be like Christ, you already possess. If you’re a genuine follower of Christ, the Spirit that raised Him from the dead lives in you. You are called into a process, a walk, a journey of transformation by God’s Spirit through His Word.

Part of this process is to walk in the light. And then, we’re to walk in love (Ephesians 5:2) and in wisdom. Wisdom is the skill, the insight, the knowledge, and the understanding, to apply the truth of God.

Called to Different Places

Fifth, and finally, God calls us to different places. 1 Corinthians 7:17 says, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.”

If He’s called you to a kind of work, do that work, unless He shows you something different, and reveal Jesus there. Be an ambassador for Christ.

—Chip Ingram and Living on the Edge, condensed.