Issue 367
Your high calling
Try to imagine how you would feel if someone came up to you and asked to meet the person doing your job; if they asked to be introduced to someone in your company or organisation and they used your job title. So the statement would be something like: ‘We would like to meet… ‘; then you fill in your job title.
The chances are that you might feel a bit irritated; if you are in a very senior position in your organisation, you might feel a little insulted.
This was the experience of Herod when some Iranian (Persian)visitors arrived at his office; they wanted to meet the King of the Jews; this was Herod’s job title. Herod’s reaction was very strange: in his soul he knew that this enquiry could be linked to the serious and credible possibility of a predicted event actually coming true; if that was the case, then this was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the bigger, better person and to do the right thing; however, in spite of his intelligence in the matter, he chose to set up a strategy to eliminate this perceived threat to his position; in so doing, he missed his high calling.
The Advent arrival signals new management; you cannot stay in charge and buy into the way of the Nazarene; His terms and conditions are clear; it is a takeover; it is new management. If you want to live out your high calling, then may I suggest you embrace the new management regime and let him take up his office in your soul and manage from the inside out? He was born king; he can only be born king in you – that’s just the way it works.
Matthew 2:1-12
1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
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Geoff Shattock
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