The Discovery: Exploring God’s Call On Your Life Sample

“The Assignment: What’s my niche?” As we’ve already discussed, Jesus’ call to Himself is three-fold, setting those who respond apart for salvation, discipleship, and ministry. The call of Jesus is for all sinners. The ministry of Jesus Christ is to reconcile sinners to God, and the ministry of all believers is to act as ambassadors for Christ, pointing others to Christ and spreading the message of salvation. If the call is the same for all believers and the ministry is the same for all believers, what sets one believer apart from the next? The assignment! God has uniquely created each individual with His ultimate purpose of reconciling the lost to Himself in mind, giving each a specific set of gifts, talents, abilities, passions, experiences, circumstances, and opportunities to be used for His glory. When a person becomes a believer and surrenders completely to God’s will for his/her life, God begins to use those gifts, talents, abilities, passions, experiences, circumstances, and opportunities together to accomplish His purpose through that believer. When the believer begins to understand the specifics of his makeup and begins to sense God using him, he will experience a sense of fulfillment and purpose. He will begin to understand that no one else can do exactly what he was designed to do in the way that God equipped him to do it and will discover that he has been assigned a niche by God in which to live out the call and ministry that all believers share. Rather than constantly differentiating between the call and ministry that all believers share and a believer’s individual specific assignment, people often refer to a believer’s niche, or assignment, as being his/her ministry or calling. For example, if John carries out the ministry of Jesus Christ while working as a missionary, most would say that mission work is John’s calling. If Jennifer spreads the gospel through her school campus club, most would say that the campus club is Jennifer’s ministry. Using this terminology, there are as many ministries/callings as there are believers, and all work together to accomplish God’s will and bring glory to Him. Whatever your individual assignment, always remember that God is the One Who equips you. He will bring about the results He desires. You are not called to a task, but to Jesus. Focus on following Him, and He will accomplish the task through you. Respond to the following in your journal: What were your thoughts as you read the assigned scripture? What stood out to you? Why? What did you learn about assignment today? How were you encouraged? How were you challenged?