Devotion for 29 January - What do you do for a Living? - Part 1

A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin for today. We start a multi-sermon series on Vocation today.

Scripture Reading- Matthew 22:34-40 [ESV]

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Devotion: What do you do for a living? - Part 1.

The last few weeks we talked about God’s plan for us all and how God’s will for us is so much better than we could ever come up with. Today’s message is about God’s will for us in terms of our vocation. Vocations vary from being a parent, being a neighbor, a volunteer, teacher, business man, etc. No matter what, all these vocations [if they are not illegal, immoral, or unethical] serve mankind and are pleasing to God. God’s guidance to us in the text is about how we should conduct our lives is to love Him and to love our neighbors. In our sermon today, the example was given about what we do socially when we meet a new person. At the very beginning of a conversation with someone we just are meeting someone will invariably say “What do you do for a living.?” I am going to guess the answer is likely similar to one of those vocations listed earlier. I wonder what the reaction would be if you said this: “Oh, mostly I love God and my fellow man”. [Pause]……...Boom! The point is that if your total identity is your job or vocation, your life could be subject to a crisis if you have to change jobs or say, retire. Let’s consider that all work that serves humanity is pleasing to God and think about identifying ourselves at lovers of God and one another. Vocation is more about who you are that what you do. That feels pretty good now doesn’t it?

We pray: “Lord, thank you for the opportunity to love and serve you. Amen”