February 5, 2021

“Called to Become”

Our first calling as human beings is to be loved by God. That means our first response to God is to receive something from Him, not to do something for Him.

Once we’ve accepted His life-changing love, we are called to belong to His family. Not in name only, but in practice. We are to join ourselves to His church because He created us for community.

Once we belong to God’s family, He calls us to become something. That “something” is defined in Romans 8:29.

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son…

God wants us to take on the characteristics of His Son. In part, the Bible tells us Jesus is loving and joyful. He is peaceful, patient, and kind.  He is good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.  (Galatians 5:22-23)

The process of becoming like Jesus is described as running a race in the Bible.  Every Christian is running this race right now. Some are making progress, others aren’t. The starting line of our race is salvation, or when we said, “Yes” to Jesus, and the finish line is Christlikeness.

On Sunday, we’ll be looking at Hebrews 12:1-3 where we find five biblical strategies to help us successfully run our marathon to maturity. I hope you can join us either in-person or online.

Running to win,

pastor jamie