Tag Archives: michael kimball

An assault on calling…

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Coaching, Michael

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In the fourth chapter of Luke’s gospel we find the Holy Spirit leading Jesus in the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by the devil. During the entire forty day period Jesus eats nothing. Afterward, he’s hungry.

I bet!

The devil seizes upon the opportunity and issues a challenge: If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.

It is the beginning of a two-pronged assault.

The first prong deals with identity: If  Jesus is the Son of God? Give me a break!

A second front in the battle opens with the words: tell this stone to become bread.

Jesus is an obedient Son, doing only what he sees his Father doing. And his Father doesn’t turn rocks into bread. God can rain down manna from heaven if he likes but he doesn’t turn stones into bread.

So how does all this translate into an assault on calling?

Every one of us has a primary calling on our life, a calling made by the Caller of all humanity. A calling to come home to the God and Father of us all, taking our place as obedient and loving sons and daughters. A call issued through Jesus Christ: follow me! Once this primary call has been heeded we are led into a secondary call: we are given something to do for the kingdom of heaven, a particular role in God’s grand story, a specific, irreplaceable purpose by which we reflect the glory of God to the world around us.

Being who we are called to be and doing what we are called to do leads to a similar assault by the devil on our own lives. Our identity is challenged as is our calling: Who are you to think God even cares about you let alone that he has given you something special to do? Pompous! Arrogant! Prideful!

The devil challenged Jesus’ identity and calling. Jesus is the Son of God and his calling was not to be self-serving but to serve as a ransom for many, the Savior of the world. Jesus rebuffed the devil’s assault with the truth.

We do well to do likewise.

The truth is, you are his beloved bride, sons and daughters of the living God—Creator of all that is seen and all that is unseen—and you are destined for good works prepared in advance for you to do. (Eph 2:10)

Discover, live, and fulfill your calling to the glory of God!

~michael

To learn more about the idea of calling visit us at Longings End Coaching.

Image courtesy of Master isolated images

Announcing Longings End Coaching!

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by in Coaching, General

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I’m pumped! What else can I say? Today we unveil our new website and the life coaching service it offers. Another piece of God’s marvelous puzzle of grace falling into place here at Longings End.

Maybe all the pieces are falling into place in your life, too…or maybe not.

Our connecting here today may be much more than merely coincidental.

I’m here because of my calling: sharing with others the God who loves, listens, liberates and longs for us to know Him.

Calling isn’t something we do as a vocation, turned on each morning as we head to work and flipped back off on our way home.

No, calling runs a lot deeper and finds expression in everything we do and every relationship we have. Being a certified professional coach is just one of several ways I express my calling.

How about you? What’s your calling?

Is it so much a part of your life that it finds release in every moment of your day, no matter what you’re doing or who you are with?

Maybe you’ve never thought that much about it. Or maybe you have, but either can’t get your arms around what your calling is or how to live it out. I’ve been there!

Want to start figuring the puzzle out?

Professional life coaching uncovers the answers already inside of you. LifeMapping, a unique feature of Longings End Coaching, brings vague ideas into focus.

Together, you and I will chart a course into your future, discovering the calling and purpose of your life.

With hearts wide open we invite you to visit Longings End Coaching and get acquainted. Feel free to contact us with any questions or to set up an appointment.

(We’ve also included a preview page here on our blog. Let us know what you think.)

Perhaps you’re at the right place at the right time after all...

~michael

Discover, live, and fulfill your calling!

Saturday Psalm: Psalm 16

05 Saturday May 2012

Posted by in Audio, Michael, Scripture

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Today’s Psalm…

~michael

Series: Psalm 34 (vv 19-22)

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Michael, Scripture

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(This is the sixth of six posts having to do with Psalm 34.)

Many adversities come to the one who is righteous,
but the Lord delivers him from them all.
He protects all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
Evil brings death to the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be punished.
The Lord redeems the life of His servants,
and all who take refuge in Him will not be punished.

Psalm 34:19-22

Many adversities come to the one who is righteous,
but the Lord delivers him from them all.
He protects all his bones;
not one of them is broken.

It doesn’t take long before life teaches us that something is amiss, that there is an evil present in the world that assaults us all regardless of how noble our life. It’s a dangerous world. No matter how we live—in obedience to God or not—for as long as we live in the flesh evil stalks our lives. Misery, distress, and injury are ours to contend with alongside the pleasures and joys of life. You could live a perfect, sinless life and adversities would still show up at your doorstep.

Just ask Jesus.

But together with the promise of adversity in this world comes an even greater promise, that of deliverance!

True, the Lord’s rescues take strange form at times. Again, look at Jesus. Father’s deliverance from adversity came in the form of a triumphant death on a cross, a death that didn’t need His legs to be broken to hasten its coming like those crucified with Him.

As was the case with our Elder Brother, the ultimate deliverance of the righteous—of those who have placed all their hope in the Son of God—lies through  death’s doorway to everlasting life and home with the Father of all.

Evil brings death to the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be punished.

Although physical death comes to everyone, there is the awfulness of spiritual death, of separation from God, that is of the worse sort. And to persist in evil is to persist in separation from Life Himself. For didn’t Jesus declare that He was the life? (Jn 14.6) To hate the righteous, those who love and live in obedience to the Son of Man, is to hate God and so bring the awful death of separation from Him upon one’s own head, a severe punishment, indeed!

I do not like the Holman Bible’s translation of the Hebrew word, asham, as “punished”. It is a word that means to offend, be guilty. To hate that which is righteous is to be guilty, certainly. Yet non-redemptive punishment for punishment’s sake alone strikes me as foreign to the God I have come to know through Jesus. For the One who commanded us to love our enemies, to bless them and do good to them, will He not do the same? Not even the guilty are beyond the love of God in Christ Jesus, in this world or the one to come.

The Lord redeems the life of His servants,
and all who take refuge in Him will not be punished.

God is all about redemption: taking that which has been lost and restoring it to wholeness. Each of us who have yielded ourselves to Christ have found Him ever working to heal our brokenness. No matter to what depths sin—either our own or that of others—has marred the landscape of our lives, our heavenly Father promises an eventual outcome beyond our imagination!

To take refuge in the midst of a world chock full of devilish storms of all kinds by seeking the shelter of the love of God in Jesus Christ is the essence of wisdom! To be clothed in His righteousness, to exchange the dirty rags of our own feeble works for Christ’s glorious goodness, is to flee from guilt and all its eternal consequences into everlasting life and joy…

~michael