“Postman’s come!” I shouted out. A moment before, a brown envelope had dropped through the letter box. Seventeen year old’s don’t get many letters! But it was addressed to me, and on it were the words “On Her Majesty’s Service” in bold print across the top. I knew who it was from. I tore the envelope open and unfolded the official looking letter inside with its government crest.
“This letter is to confirm your appointment as an Assistant Scientific Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food’s (MAFF for short!) National Fruit Trials, Brogdale Road, Faversham Kent. Your start date will be August 23rd, 1965 at a starting salary of £426 per annum, paid monthly.”
“I’ve got a job!” It was to be my first job after leaving school a few weeks earlier, at the tender age of 17. It was to be the start of a 32 year career as a civil servant working for MAFF in various parts of the country.
I was elated! I had been appointed, I was wanted, I now had a purpose for my life. And I was getting paid!
On August 23rd I reported to the Station Director. After a short welcome I was given my first task. It was to manage three very experienced ladies as they picked and I recorded the weight of fruit from each bush in a trial of blackcurrant varieties. It was a good job they knew what they were doing! I didn’t! It all seemed terribly difficult, I might get it all wrong and who am I to tell older people what to do! But it was my first proper job and I was being rewarded for it financially.
In the Bible Paul of Tarsus tells us about the job he was appointed to. In the opening to his letter to the Romans, Paul writes:
“Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God. (Romans 1:1) He knew he was called to be an apostle of his Lord Jesus Christ.
A little earlier, in his letter to the church in Galatia, he writes: “This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.”
What does it mean to be “appointed”? God doesn’t only appoint apostles. God has a special rôle for each one of His human family (whether each person acknowledges it or not!). To fully understand what it means to be appointed by God, we need to know where we stand in our relationship to Him, as followers of Jesus Christ.
Let’s start way back in the Old Testament. In Psalm 139 we read: “You are fearfully and wonderfully made by God.” (Psalm 139:14)
What’s more, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul tells us that the moment we gave our lives to Jesus our relationship with God changed: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”
We are reconciled to God, in a totally new relationship with him, and even trusted by Him to be His ambassadors!
In his letter to the Ephesians Paul writes: “You are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.“
The apostle Peter writes::“You are part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation”. ( 1 Peter 2:9)
These writers are echoing what Jesus Himself said: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.” (John 15: 16-17)
Our appointment is based on a new, deep relationship of intimacy of sonship. It is also a relationship with purpose; there is job to be done. God has a plan, a purpose for the life of every one of us, each person He has created.
So what are we chosen to do? What exactly does our appointment involve? Is it going to be hard to do?
Romans 8:28: tells us: ”And we know that all things work for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.“
In 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul writes that God: “ ….called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.”
Jesus says His burden is light in Matthew 11:30: ”For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
He also says, in Acts 1:8 :”But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
It seems that we are each of us called to a job that is big, perhaps too big we might feel, if not say! But the whole thrust of these verses about the job we are appointed to is that “those He calls he also equips!” A well-used summary of the situation!
So there is a purpose, a practical outworking of that appointment that involves action. Each of us is called to our own individual action to carry out God’s purposes. It was true for Paul and it just as true for me, and I need to be obedient to do His will, His purpose, His assignment.
Being appointed is special. The job God has in mind for me is important. One person, one job, one rôle to fulfil. Chosen. Valued. Needed.
I need to take that rôle seriously, just as God does. If I “do my own thing” then God’s purpose for my life is thwarted and I ignore His will. And I know from experience how counterproductive that is. For myself, for the church, for those around me. God will have to “find” someone else.
Is that what I want? What will He say to me when we eventually “meet up”?
In the Parable of the Talents that Jesus shared, the Lord said to two of his workers: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25: 21-23)
That would be enough for me! “Well done, good and faithful servant … Enter into the joy of your Lord!”
All references are from the NKJV unless specified otherwise.
John Partis
bearing-kingdom-fruit.com
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