Above every duty, our first obligation to God is worship.
We use the term “calling of God” in the church to describe our burdens to preach or teach, give our lives to missions or to children’s work or follow other worthwhile pursuits that will help people come into the kingdom of God. We have been taught that as we fulfill the calling of God on our lives, we will find fulfillment and be successful in life. However, this narrow definition of calling does not encompass the scriptural understanding of personal destiny that results in living a dynamic life.
Have you ever considered why you were called to be a child of God? Was it to become a powerful preacher of the gospel, to be a missionary in a far-off country or to be a good husband and father or wife and mother?
Is your calling to be a successful businessperson? Although these may be valid pursuits in life in obedience to the calling of God, we need to look more closely into the Scriptures to identify our true calling.
In my study of the Scriptures, I have discovered at least 41 calls that apply to the lives of believers. Consider, for example, that we are called out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9) or that we are called to be saints (Rom. 1:7).
But not one of these 41 calls is our primary call.
When God created Adam, there were no churches to pastor, no heathen to preach the gospel to and no businesses or offices to manage. The primary reason God created Adam was to fulfill God’s desire for a family with whom He could enjoy sweet communion. His first priority is the same today as then: to enjoy His children in a love relationship.
Jesus declared, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). Our primary calling is our destiny to enjoy relationship with God, not to work for Him. The work God gave Adam to do was to have dominion over the earth. He was in charge of taking care of the place where he would live with his descendants and where God would come to walk with him and commune with him.
God’s desire for believers is to cultivate a love relationship with each of us. In the context of that relationship He will then give us specific tasks to do. Yet the tasks should never diminish the priority of relationship with Him.
Of course, God has ordained that the church, the body of Christ in the earth, serve one another as we serve God. But we must be careful to prioritize our calling the way God does and not according to man’s perspective.
God intends that our service to the body of Christ and to lost humanity proceed out of relationship with Himself. That relationship of worship—the creature to the Creator, the redeemed to the Redeemer—will motivate us to serve out of a heart of love for God.
I am convinced that whatever God does to advance His purpose on the earth is born out of a worshiping people. When the woman at the well asked Jesus questions about worship, He responded, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23).
It was the woman’s question and Jesus’ answer that led me to seek God and search the Scriptures in order to understand what Jesus meant by worship in “spirit and truth.” God seeks worshipers who will cultivate a love relationship with Him. He values our relationship with Him more than anything we can or will ever do for Him. We can show Him that we value it as well by laying hold of our primary calling to enjoy and worship Him.
The late Fuchsia Pickett is the author of Worship Him, from which this article is adapted.
