Greetings again my Brethren. This month begins our 12th year of publication and ministry to the Body of Christ. We marvel at how God has taken our simple desire to just follow Him to heights unimaginable. Who would have thought we would have been able to help establish a maternity clinic, two TB clinics, a radio station, and minister to millions of people around the world, God. It was not that Karen and I were something special, but we said yes to God and His plan for our lives. This is all God wants, “yes LORD” and out from that even the sky will not be the limit.
When we behold God’s glory many things happen in our lives, I mean when we really get a glimpse of His glory our love for Him and His children (should be both) intensifies and we just want to know Him the more. It was the same with Karen. The more I talked with her and the more we shared time together the more I wanted to talk with and hang around her, so too with God’s call for our lives. The more we spend time with God the clearer we will hear and understand His voice. A part of that understanding we learn is God is calling us just because He wants to and there is nothing we can do or say that will make God call us. Our call to ministry is based on God’s plan and our desire to answer that call. We see this play out in the book of Amos. Did you know we do not need to be a prophet or a “mighty man of God” to be used of God. God is looking for hearts that are right in His sight. Peter tells us, “But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” (1 Peter 3:4) These are the qualities God is looking for in us. What more can God invest in us to have us do His will? Amos thought he had to be a prophet, but God showed him otherwise, “Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: 15And the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.” (Amos 7:14-15) God’s call on our lives depends not on education, going to Bible School, attending church faithfully, paying our tithes and the like, but on God’s will and our obedience to His call. Now these things are good to do and doing these things listed above will certainly help us fulfill His call, but doing them without being called will only frustrate us because we are looking for an expected result that God has nothing to do with. And of course in God when we are doing something that God does NOT want us to be doing we are NOT doing what God wants us to be doing.
God has enough religious men and women he needs men and women who can hear His voice and answer His call.
Of course the best example of being called is from the Master Himself when He called some of the disciples. In Mark we read, “Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 17And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 18And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. 19And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. 20And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.” (Mark 1:16-20) Two critical things here in these verses: the first Jesus never told them follow me and you will be killed or follow me and your life will be tough. No Jesus said, “I will make you to become fisher of men.” It is in this becoming Jesus is talking about that enabled the disciples to endure all they went through. So to in our lives this becoming, this making us like Himself will kill us, but at the same time it will make us alive. The second point is in verse 18 and 20, it says, “And straightway” that is what God is looking for in our lives. He is looking for us to immediately or without any hesitation to follow Him even unto death the ultimate fear in our lives. Jesus told the disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) What are we to follow Christ in, our death. And if we lose our life for His sake we shall find it. This losing of our life is not just the physical (which we will lose someday), but is also of the spiritual.
Next month we will complete the call of God under diverse circumstances by looking at Matthew and Saul. Do you hear Him now?
