Every believer has a vocation, a calling to glorify God by working in his or her station (1 Cor. 7:17). Our specific callings—mechanic, pilot, housewife, pastor—flow from our general calling to be a Christian and from the effectual call of the Holy Spirit.
This is not to discredit the significant work done by non-believers. I’m thankful that non-Christians can and do work well. When I step onto an airplane, I don’t first wonder if the pilot knows his catechism, but if he is a master of his craft! Still, those who dishonor the Lord as God (Rom. 1:21) are not answering God’s call.
To have a Christian calling you must be a Christian. You “must be born again” to both “see the kingdom of God” (John 3:7, 3) and to live as a good citizen of that kingdom. Conversion is the key to vocation.
Conversion Answers Our Need for Justification
Work can become a useless quest for purpose and value. Believers can say, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10) but feel that God loves us only when our work is helpful, appreciated, and financially well compensated.
The converting grace of God makes believers in Christ free to live as sons who possess their Father’s love, rather than as servants striving to prove their worth (Gal. 4:7). Grace assures us that we don’t have to perform well for God to accept us. If he has given us his Son, he will “graciously give us all things” (Rom. 8:32). The first truth about you as a believer is not that you are an achiever, but that Christ loves you and has given himself for you (Gal. 2:20)!
Conversion Activates the Motivator of Gratitude
Only when God redeems us can we finally receive our vocations—even their challenging aspects—as gifts deserving of profound thankfulness. The Christ to whom believers belong makes us “wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.” To work in the joy of divine comfort we need to know how we are “to thank God for such deliverance.” Only when Paul met Christ did he say, “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). As a believer, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20). Our work is not how we say please—God, give me the reward of my labor. Instead, it is how we say thank you. We go to work, as Martin Luther wrote, “out of spontaneous love in obedience to God.”
Conversion Imparts Essential Vocational Qualities and Convictions
At conversion God’s indwelling Spirit transforms us and begins to make us bear life-changing fruit that we can take to work (Gal. 5:22–23). You need love; not just love for your work, but love for the people with and for whom you work. You need joy—not mere satisfaction when a project works, but deep happiness in God that transcends your earthly success or failures. Similar things could be said for the rest of the fruit of the Spirit. Only those who “put on the new man” can face the spiritual challenges of vocation (Gal. 5:24; Eph. 4:24).
Good work also requires convictions informed by sound theology. Homespun vocational platitudes and clichés—if you can dream it, you can do it—won’t do. Only convictional fortitude founded on God’s word can revolutionize your work life. Conversion gives you “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), which enables you to think and act like God in even the hardest times.
This is an excerpt from William Boekestein's book, Finding My Vocation: A Guide for Young People Seeking a Calling. Read Part 2 here.
Footnotes
Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 1.
Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 2.
Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Three Treatises (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960), 295.
