NUMBER 5 - Summer Thoughts: MY CALLING

GOD CALLS:

This is a study of our calling in Christ Jesus, when, why, how. I hope you will study the passages and relate them to your own calling in Christ.

God Calls us:

Through the Gospel:
God calls us through the Holy Spirit’s work on our heart through the Gospel.

Though God may use us as a tool to speak about His great plan for man, it is the work of God’s Spirit on the heart that brings man to respond to the Gospel. Never let a man take credit for “winning” a soul to Christ. It is God who wins the soul of a tender heart to His message. (Titus 3:5)

Through His Word:

When we have been called out of Darkness into His marvelous Light, we begin a relationship with God that endows us with the power to hear and to heed His daily call.

Ephesians 1:19

and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might

Through His Spirit:

God calls us daily into relationship with Him, not as a church (body of believers), but as an individual. Each individual must remain sensitive to the call of God.

John 16:8
And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

Ephesians 3:16
that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man;

Faith is the basis of our walk with God. It is not the kind of faith that makes a singular statement that “Jesus is the Christ”, it the kind of faith that takes us daily out of our comfort zone to walk into the” valley of the shadow of death” with our Lord and Savior.

The Spirit circumcises our fleshly hearts removing the callousness of earthly desires. This circumscion is painful, the cutting away of cultural and materialistic desires. This circumcision requires a dedicated sensitivity to the calling of God in each step that we take.

Philippians 3:3
for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh:

Colossians 2:11
in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;

Eph 4: 17-19 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

Through Supernatural Power:

Walking with God becomes a supernatural event when we walk in deep abiding faith confident that God will direct each of our steps.

We must be in the “last days” according to 2 Timothy 3:

1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

This word “power” is the Greek word for supernatural, miraculous power (dunamis). Paul writing to Timothy was not talking about signs and wonders (terras and semions) that were performed through the apostles' hands, but rather the power (dunamis) that abides with each Christian if they believe. Romans 1:16 tells us that this dunamis/power is in the Gospel. If we truly believed in the miraculous power of God to turn souls to accept the Gospel, we would not hesitate to share it more often.

Ephesians 3:20
Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

2 Peter 1:3
seeing that his divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue;

Having a “form of godliness” simply means that in the last days folks will practice religiosity, rituals, and religious acts, but have no faith in the working of God in the hearts of men. Their lives will demonstrate this lack of faith by the way they live in fear of being unique, peculiar, believers in the power of the Living God.

God calls us to believe in His power. God calls us to respond to His power.

• Eph 3: 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The “goal” of Paul’s prayer for the saints was that they be filled to “the fullness of God” by having faith in the power of the Spirit in their inner being. Oh! What a faith that would be! Lord, give us the ability to hear your call to faith and to believe in your power that can strengthen us in these “last days”. May we never practice religiosity devoid of power. May we never stop listening to your call to relationship.


2 Peter 1:10
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.

Have we stumbled? Have we closed our ears to the daily calling of God?


He calls us into relationship, day by day, minute by minute. Do we hear that call?

Those of you with small children know what is like to keep up with a child in the mall or at an amusement park. We are constantly checking, watching, calling and holding hands to keep our children within reach. This is the exact same relationship God wants with His saints. He wants us to keep checking, watching, holding hands with Him as He calls us to the work that He has in mind for us (individually) to do. Only the Spirit of God can fill your heart with such a message. The words on the page do not move us, only God’s Spirit can do this.

The story is told of the Russian leader, Lenin, as a young boy. His priest saw the ability of the boy to memorize and taught him (or bribed him, some say, with a rubel) to memorize the 4 Gospels. With such words committed to memory, one would hope the words would take hold in the boy’s heart. Lenin grew to be one of the most notorious murderers Russia had ever known. Being a Biblical scholar does not make us empowered. Only a tender, sensitive heart, humbled as a slave, can be filled by the transforming Spirit of God (2 Corinthians 3:18).

1 Corinthians 4:20
For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

God has plans for you:

2 Thessalonians 1:11
With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.

Walking with God requires a Power-Filled Relationship:

2 Peter 1:3
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge (epignosis – above knowledge, relationship) of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Individual Calling:

I just completed a book which I highly recommend, Terry Rush’s “Afraid God Works, Afraid He Doesn’t”. In his chapter “Where Do We Go from Prayer?”, there is a paragraph entitled: Let Him Lead Us Out of Ourselves. In this paragraph he quotes the writer, Cho:

          "Once I fell in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit started directing the love of  God towards His people, I could no longer hide within myself. I had to step out in faith and believe God for greater things.”

Pride (love of self) and self-pity (self-consumption) become the “decaying things” that can destroy our chances of growing more and more into the glory of God’s presence.”

God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous Light (1 Peter 2:9). God continues to call us to higher ground. Let us seek the unsearchable greatness of God’s power. Let us believe with our hearts that God will bring the “hidden wisdom” of His mercy and grace into our lives. Let us treasure the unfathomable riches of His glory, the mystery, the non-seeable, the immeasurable, the abundant life. Let our AIM in live be to hear God’s calling and to respond by checking, listening, hearing, and ever moving closer to Him in a trusting relationship.

We are hardly able to say that we have succeeded in letting God escape from the “box” we have placed Him in. Let us get over the fear of letting God roam where we cannot explain and taking us along with Him as we hear His calling, hold His hand, and take each step in absolute surrender and unfailing faith.

REVIEW:

God has called you through the Gospel.


2 Thessalonians 2:14
whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.


God Continues to Call:

1 Corinthians 7:20
Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called.


Ephesians 4:1
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called


There is a General Calling (Higher Calling):

Romans 1:6
among whom are ye also called to be Jesus Christ's:

Romans 1:7
To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 3:1
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus;

Ephesians 4:4
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling;

1 Corinthians 1:2
unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours:

1 Corinthians 1:9
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship (relationship) of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Galatians 5:13
For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.

Ephesians 4:1
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called,

1 Thessalonians 4:7
For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification. (See Sanctification Process)

2 Timothy 1:9
who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,

1 Peter 1:15
but like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living;

1 Peter 2:9
But ye are a elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

1 Peter 2:21
For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow his steps:

1 Peter 3:9
not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

1 John 3:1
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

Jude 1:1
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:

There is an individual Calling:

Philippians 3:14
I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 1:1
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,

1 Peter 5:10
And the God of all grace, who called you unto his eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall himself perfect, establish, strengthen you.

1 Corinthians 7:17
Only, as the Lord hath distributed to each man, as God hath called each, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all the churches.

1 Corinthians 7:20
Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called.

2 Thessalonians 1:11
To which end we also pray always for you, that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power;

2 Timothy 1:9
who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,

2 Peter 1:10
Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never st

What has God called you to today?

Are you Listening?

If you have not watched this video, please watch it all the way through.  Do you hear something?

The Opposite of Hearing God's Call

Psalm 135:17

They have ears, but they hear not;

Isaiah 6:10

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.