"Are You Listening For Your Call?" Lesson 167

Lesson 167: “ARE YOU LISTENING FOR YOUR CALL”?

“God gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). If these two things were all God even did, we would be serving a mighty God indeed! He is greater than we can comprehend (Job 36:26). He will be the very core of our lives once we set out minds and hearts on knowing Him and accepting His ways and His call on our lives. God will tell us who He is! He is the Author of His best selling instruction Book! There is one catch to getting acquainted with God and that is the understanding that He will never force His will on you. Notice in Isaiah 6:8; “Whom can I send? Who will go for us”? God did not direct His question to Isaiah; however, Isaiah intercepted the question and was ready with his answer; “Here am I! Send me”! He leaped at the chance to serve God in total submission, obedience and faith.

Others later would follow Jesus with just one a one word summons; “Follow me” (Matt. 4:17-22), and the very first disciple did just that. One other Scripture that draws attention is Matthew 22:14; “Many are called but few are chosen”. This passage does not mean Jesus rejected anyone; instead some rejected Him and subsequently not chosen to do the Lord’s work. There are some we are all familiar with that listened and heeded the Lord’s call. “It is no frivolous matter to hear the voice of God and awesome to speak for Him” (Charles Colson); “Preaching makes my knees knock” (Martin Luther) and “I tremble lest I should misinterpret the Word” (Spurgeon). What a privilege to be called and what a mistake to turn Him away!

God has given every believer a place in the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:4-11) and He has arranged the parts of the Body just as He wanted them to be (1 Cor. 12:18). To find your place, you must first become a friend of God (John 15:14-15) and after becoming His friend to work diligently (1 Cor. 15:10). God can work through the most unusual ways and unlikely people to accomplish His will, Paul being the most unqualified of all before God ‘took hold’ of him (Acts 9:3-19). God chose Paul even knowing, or maybe because of knowing, that Paul ‘held the coats’ of the men that stoned Stephen (Acts 7:58). After Paul’s conversion, He began to preach the gospel and never let up for the Lord was standing near (Acts 23:3, 11). There was no ‘woe is me’ in Paul after the call of God but total submission, starting most of his letters with, ‘Paul, an apostle, a servant of Jesus Christ by the will and command of God’.

Once you give your life to God, get to know Him personally and love Him as He loves you then you will hear the call. You will be called to “be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 22-23). As Paul appealed to Timothy, I appeal to you “to reflect on what I am saying” and I am confident that with meditation and contemplation the Lord will grant you the insight to carry out His will (2 Tim. 2:7). Carriers of the truth of God are to represent that truth and the God of truth well enough that we need never apologize for ourselves. God wants His people to be well prepared in the interpretation of God’s truth. Then messenger who interprets God’s truth for others is an agent of His revelation. The teacher is one who correctly handles the Word of truth. The image is that of laying out a road. The teacher is to lay out a clearly marked pathway for others to walk. This effort requires study and devoted minds (2 Tim. 2:15). The Word can be abused as well as used. The only effective way to prevent distortion is diligent preparation at the study desk. Where teachers and learners are lax in their studies of the Scripture, Bible study classes are too often filled with godless chatter and vain babblings. Instead of becoming mature in the faith, members and teachers become ungodly, yet they claim success because their classes become popular (1 Tim. 6:3-6).

Jesus said that He had not come to call the righteous but the sinners (Mark 2:17). If you think you are just too bad for God to use you, beware! Your call is on the way! Remember that you are just an old clump of clay and God is the Potter (Isa. 64:8) and He holds out His hand to you, even the obstinate (Isa. 65:1-2). Evangelism helps lost people find a cure for their sin sickness. Self-righteous people are usually the last to acknowledge they are sick and lost. Jesus is the only Physician who can cure sin sickness. He sends the ones He calls not to judge others but to proclaim the good news to all people, even at the risk of being criticized by the self-righteous. Jesus paid special attention to those the religious hypocrites rejected. He calls us to follow Him to love sinners. God works to save sinners! We stay too busy showing others how good and religious we are to pay attention to His efforts to save. Repeated sin produces an obstinate people; a people with a stubborn rebellion against God like a sullen child refusing to obey a parent. The Creator is not ever far removed from His creation. We can still cry out to Him and get back under the obedience of our Father’s will and His calling. God promises to bless those who serve Him with the basic necessities of life and with the joy of service to Him (Isa. 65:13-16). God takes those who are willing to commit their lives to Him and makes them His chosen people. They do good and seek to know Him and His will!

The Lord did not ascend and then forget the people He left behind. He sent the Holy Spirit with gifts to equip His church for ministry. Salvation as sanctification is growth toward maturity by the measure of the fully grown Christ. God does not want us to remain childish and immature in our faith. His gifts to the church are intended to help His body grow internally and in missionary outreach. Every Christian is gifted and called to do the work of ministry and to build up the body of Christ. Every Christian has the responsibility to help every other member of the body of Christ to grow in faith. Maturity leads a Christian to be discerning in what to believe as true and thus the church grows spiritually and numerically when each part of the body lives under Christ’s control (Eph. 4:7-16).

Doors for evangelism are opened by the Holy Spirit alone (Acts 4:31). To go ahead of God or lag behind will thwart the work of the Holy Spirit in opening people to receive our testimony. We must walk with God in the fullness of the Holy Spirit to be effective witnesses (2 Cor. 2:12-13). This is a profound responsibility placed on believers. We are an aroma to the world of life or death. How essential for us to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in such a way as to bring life. We have God’s promise of victory and He leads us in His triumphal procession. We are unequal to the task but Christ gives us grace and power to evangelize with effect. God’s people are His creation, working, witnessing and living to help change the world for Christ. Christian workers need no better recommendation than the lives of those whom we have influenced to live for Christ. The result of our ministry should be persons following the Spirit’s leadership. The Spirit alone rewards our ministry. God gave Moses the task of presenting the covenant to Israel in the form of the Ten Commandments written on stone. He gave Paul the privilege of presenting the new covenant to the world in the form of the Holy Spirit written on the hearts of God’s people. The presence of the Spirit gives life to God’s people and creates a community of righteousness which surpasses the glory of Israel’s law. The church and its glory will never fade away (2 Cor. 2:14-16, 3:2-11).

Daniel 7:25 tells us that in the last days that Satan will wear out the saints. For some of the Christians today that should be an easy job for him since we are already tired of witnessing and drawing people to Jesus. All God is asking for is your time and obedience and His grace will do the rest even when you feel you are weak and helpless (2 Cor. 12:9). Through this grace and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, when you are called, you will be effective in your situation. God asked; “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people” (Jer. 8:22)? Are we living in Gilead? There was a church so dry that when one man died, they carried out three before they got the right one! Let us all get back into the light, for a child has been born unto us and of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end (Isa. 9:2-7). Let us all get up and show our appreciation and love for this child by being His witness (Acts 1:8)!