Diligent Confirmation
March 4, 2026
“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you
Vocation? What does God want me to do for work? What could God possibly say about work that would matter in the Twenty-first Century? Isn’t work part of the curse for sinning?
All the way back in the early interactions between the Lᴏʀᴅ and mankind, work is part of God’s plan when everything was perfectly good,
Early noteworthy points are that God began the process that we know as Life by working and pronouncing each creative act as ‘very good,’ that mankind 2 was to follow in God’s image, that God’s blessing upon mankind included fruitfulness, multiplying, filling, subduing and having dominion. Part of this ‘very good’ design is productivity in that which God gave mankind to do. Lest work be seen as a consequence of sin, this is pre-Fall and it is in the image of God.
With the fall of mankind with sin (Genesis 3), work does become complicated. The first act we see after sin was working to ‘cover up’ their sense of being uncovered. When their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked, ‘they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.’ And then they hid themselves. When the Lᴏʀᴅ speaks to them of the consequences of their choices apart from agreeing with His wisdom, the phrases ‘cursed is the ground’ ‘thorns and thistles it shall bring forth’ and ‘by the sweat of your face’ you shall produce. This is not a pronouncement against work but the notice that the consequence of sin adds another dimension to work.
In his 2012 book, Every Good Endeavor3, Timothy Keller reminds that work as considered in the Bible has both the worker and the One who calls the worker to the work. The New Testament repeats the idea of being ‘called’ to work several places. It does not say that we are to be delivered from work but rather that we continue to work with a new perspective:
The word ‘called’ in Greek is klēsis to be the object of a call, an invitation to participate in a practice. In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul’s context for ‘condition’ has to do with work and status as bond or free. He doubles up on this in Ephesians 4:1,
In King James this is translated, ‘walk worthy of the vocation’ using vocation (klēsis) for the activity and then the ‘you have been called’ called (kaleō) for the invitation to participate. Other key verses you could reference are Romans 11:29, 1 Corinthians 1:26 and 2 Timothy 1:9. There is another use of the word ‘calling’ (klēsis) used as part of the designation of all believers—the word for ‘church’ does not refer to a structure but rather ‘those called out,’ the ekklēsia from which we derive ecclesiastic. Ekklēsia is the prefix ‘out of’ denoting origin and ‘called’ for invitation.
All of the preceding points to God not differentiating between so-called sacred or secular work but that it is all to be done ‘in a manner worthy’ of the One doing the calling. But what about God’s calling us to Himself, His extension of the invitation to participate in His realm, the Kingdom of God? Going back to our reference passage, we are encouraged to be focused upon the participation in what He calls us, not simply as Him selecting us but we accepting and then participating in that Kingdom.
While we do not initiate the invitation, fundamental to the call is the necessity of acceptance of the call and then active participation in the living out the life in the Kingdom.
The Bible does not create special classes of believers but demonstrates what D.L. Moody referred to as the ‘whosoever will’ and the ‘whosoever won’t’—that there are only one class who believe. Jesus illustrated this in a parable of the wedding in Matthew 22:2-8,
In the parable, the King of the Kingdom gives a wedding feast for His son. As was the custom, invitations were made to all the intended guests and their responses to the invitation were noted. When the time of the wedding feast was at hand, the King sent His servants to announce the time of fulfillment, that it was time for the participation in the actual feast. Up to this point, everyone had been agreeable as wanting to participate but when the announcement that it was time to confirm by presence, many invitees were unwilling to actually come into the feast. Even worse, they dishonored the King by treating lightly the terms they had professed to accept—they paid no attention, ignored, even attacked the representatives of the King to the extremity of killing some of the King’s messengers. The King was ready but ‘those invited were not worthy.’ Worthy was not measured by accepting the invitation but by participation in what the King had prepared. The parable continues that the King continued to seek those who would participate on His terms, whose who were willing ‘to diligently confirm both the call and the participation.’
The Lᴏʀᴅ is not unfair—the wedding feast is His, the terms expressed in the invitation are clearly attendance and participation, and invitees have no reasonable expectation of receiving acceptance while they are unwilling to be ‘whosoever wills’ in what they have been called or invited into in relationship with Him.
“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you
I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
“For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the
“…that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but