Christian Vocation is the birth and growth creation and formation initiation and development of the story of a disciple and kingdom citizen subject to the Lord Jesus Christ, within the story of the people of God, within the story of the messianic kingdom of the Son of God, within the story of the triune God—creator, redeemer, and reconciler by means of being and doing knowing and living relating and obeying communing and resembling that reflects exclusive allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ animated through the power of the promised Spirit of God.
Posts Tagged ‘Sanctificaiton’
Christian Vocation: A Proposed Definition
Posted in Sanctification, Spiritual Formation, tagged Christian Formation, Christian Vocation, definition, Sanctificaiton, spiritual formation on August 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Spiritual Formation: In Search of a Definition
Posted in Sanctification, Spiritual Formation, tagged Christian Formation, Christian Vocation, definition, Sanctificaiton, spiritual formation on August 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »
NECESSARY ELEMENTS TO A DEFINITION
Divine Focus
Divine Plan—The Gospel
- Restoration of Edenic Shalōm
- By means of establishing the Son’s Reign
- Through His incarnation, life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and session as Lord and Christ the King
- Resulting in reconciliation
- Marked by forgiveness, freedom from sin and death, and the power of the Spirit
Divine Goal—Relationship and Resemblance
Two sides of the same coin: the means to and evidence of each other
- Relationship: Communion
- Resemblance: Godness, Christlikeness, holiness, obedience
Moral Character – Matt 22:36-40, Summary: Love God and love people
Virtues—the inner life or being: affections, attitudes, thoughts, and motives
Ethics—the outer life or behavior: decisions and consequent words and actions
- Affecting God, including His creation (Gen 1:28; Rom 8:19-22)
- Affecting People: Both friends and enemies
- Relationships with individuals
- Relationships with social groups, both near and far: family, church, neighborhood, community, region
- Relationships with power structures, both near and far: economic, political, military
Human Responsibility
- Active, ongoing, obedient faith, including repentance, in God on the basis of the Gospel
- Nourished by spiritual disciplines, including suffering and life in community
- In which one progressively creates a new story through mentoring relationships that include encouragement and warning
These elements give rise to possible . . .
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
Christian Formation, cf. its Moral Character
Christian Vocation, cf. its Divine Focus
(M-Webster, “vocation”: a divine call to the religious life)