The Calling of God
He’s the God of the calling. He knows what we need before we ever get there!
If you have grown up in church or hung around with Christians for long, there is a topic you’ve likely heard about. This is one of those topics that a Christian could spend a great deal of time praying about. I’m talking about knowing the call of God on your life, recognizing that you have one and yearning to learn what it is.
First of all, if you have been born again, you have a call on your life. Matthew 28:18-20 teaches us the “Great Commission.” Jesus is instructing His disciples by saying, “All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is what we are all “called” to do.
You could actually say that there are three separate callings from God. The first is the call to salvation. This is the most vital call to respond to because without it, the rest doesn’t make much sense.
The second call is to consecration and that simply means to grow and mature In Christ. We were never meant to accept Jesus and just go about living the same lives. We need to spiritually grow and mature just like our physical bodies do.
Lastly, is a call to be faithful to Jesus in a way that makes a difference in God’s kingdom. We know that our Heavenly Father is so very faithful to us. I like what it says in Corinthians 1:9 “God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” Praise God!! As Christians just passing through this time on earth we can experience a lack of faithfulness in marriage, friendships and work etc. However, we cannot say the same of our Abba Father!
The matter of a call to faithfulness is not just a suggestion for somewhere down the line, but it’s for NOW. We can stop and take mental stock of our own faithfulness to Christ and I would dare to say there is somewhere that could use some encouragement.
When it comes to our individual callings, please remember that it is not about you and me. This is about God’s faithfulness in our life. Do we believe that God is that faithful, that He will use us in all of our hang ups and all of our shortcomings and failures?
God doesn’t look at us like the world looks at us, He looks at us and says, “Im not looking at the person that’s failing and the person that made mistakes and has a past history. I’m looking at somebody that has a purpose. I’m looking at somebody that has a future. I’m looking at their potential and I can see in the future that they have something great to do.” This is such a beautiful thing to know! We can trust that God sees our future and it is bright so we should see it this way as well.
You know satan is really not that clever because he seems to only have a small bag of tricks that he uses over and over. He tempts us in our weak spots and weak moments. He temps and temps and then THE second we give in, he mocks us! How does he do that you ask? He does it by immediately turning on us a filling us with shame and regret which plays out when God needs us to make a difference in this world. Now we say things like, “God can’t use me! Look what I have done in my life?” He will even make you feel like a hypocrite. If you can grasp that image of satan working you into sin and then basically making fun of you when you mess up, it could help you with temptation.
So practically speaking, how do we respond to God’s call on our lives? Well it’s by faith! Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. Faith is the way we answer the call and we say, “God, I’m here. I surrender to you.” When we do that, we start to see God do things that we know is not possible for us to do in our human ability.
In all reality, it is God who helps us bring the calling to pass. We sometimes forget that and then wonder why our heads are spinning with doubt and why we get overwhelmed so easily. God equips us with all we need to make a difference and if the dreams and callings of God aren’t huge and seemingly impossible, we aren’t letting God steer us.
Today would be a great day to answer the call of God on your life. Receive Him first of all, and then trust in His faithfulness to bring to pass what He has called you to do.