An Invitation to Serve

"Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ." — Romans 1:5-6

The greatest journey of all begins with an invitation. It's the invitation to be part of the Body of Christ, to accept Grace, and to be part of a family of like-minded individuals who've accepted the same invitation and want to change the world for God. It's an incredible and awesome invitation, and it's an incredible and awesome responsibility. Sometimes I think we forget that.

Romans is a dense theological text. It's a challenging text. It's a text that offers us a lot to think about, and a lot about how we live our lives as those set apart for Jesus Christ. In fact, the latter half of the first chapter is a very challenging portion of text. But that's not how Paul starts.

He starts Romans, perhaps his master thesis on what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, with a reminder of that invitation and that challenge. None of the rest of what follows will have the desired impact on the hearts, minds, and lives of believers if they don't accept that first part. We can't gloss over that invitation; it's something that must be accepted.

Lent — the season we're in right now — is a time when we reflect on Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, and what that means in our lives. Paul's innovation at the beginning of Romans is a call to think about that. What does it mean to be obedient to the call of Christ in our lives? What does it mean to be a people of faith? It probably looks different for each person, but it's the foundational building block that the rest of this great invitation rests upon.