“FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS”
What does faithfulness look like in a collapsing culture? The pressure to conform to the warped demands of the “thought police” can overwhelm us. Even much of the church has conformed and capitulated to the confusion and the division. Once again we ask the question in Ezekiel 33:10, “How then shall we live?” For the people of God in any culture and under any circumstances, it has always been imperative that they develop and maintain a godly and robust lifestyle that conforms to truth and reality.
In this blog we’ve been exploring seven essentials that believers must recognize and implement into a consistent lifestyle so we are not deceived by the delusional and reprobate thinking of the day. This starts with having a firm grasp on the supremacy, sufficiency, and authority of the Word of God. Alongside this is the vital necessity of intercessory and imprecatory prayer. It is important that we then seek to become a vital part of a mature, obedient, and responsible assembly of God-followers. This intimate involvement with God becomes a launching pad for each individual to discover their unique place in that assembly and their personal call or purpose before God. This call is where we learn to leverage all that the Spirit of God has given to us in Christ, as God has uniquely crafted talents, fruits, gifts, and opportunities into our individual lives. Often the understanding and awareness of this call allows us to discern why we have been put on this path by God “for such a time as this.”
WHAT IS THE “CALL OF GOD” IN A PERSON’S LIFE?
Whether or not one is a Christian, as we grow in self-awareness, we discover our specific talents and abilities. These talents may vary from playing the piano to the ability to excel in a certain sport. These are not necessarily spiritual in nature, but when one is born again, God often uncovers new opportunities to use these natural talents.
By walking in faith, we must acclimate to having the Spirit of God in His fullness. The Spirit helps us understand the nature of God, the provision of Christ, and our actions in response to the Scriptures. The spiritual fruit of this growth in Christ can be seen in a supernatural way.
Along with the resulting fruit of obedience and using one’s talents for God, the Spirit gives each believer access to gifts to be used to minister within the body of Christ, the church. Each believer is given a prominent gift by which to minister with minimum weariness and maximum effectiveness. God curiously leads us to demonstrate other spiritual gifts through our most prominent gift.
The maturing of our talents, fruit, and gifts often becomes the portal by which the believer will discover a subjective, but very real feature of the believing life known as the “call” of God. A believer must become confident of having been chosen for salvation, crafted uniquely, and now, called to service at the summons of his master and savior, Jesus Christ.
For the believer this call is very real, intimate, and personal. The true description of a call can only be understood between an individual and their God. At the risk of sounding too subjective, the following statements can partly define a call, but they cannot, even as a group, clarify it totally.
- Your call is the “ultimate why” of your life. You are consumed by an extraordinary sense of providence and personal destiny.
- Your call is an invitation or a summons, and it requires intention and courage to pursue it. Everything we are, everything we do, everything we have is immersed with a special devotion and enthusiasm lived out in response to this summons.
- It is that which will focus your life in the midst of multiple distractions. Your call will be stretched by the challenges of this world.
- A call transforms all of our endeavors. It is the source of vision… or “imaginative seeing.”
- There is no craving for notoriety or publicity in regard to exercising one’s calling; only satisfaction in and with the “audience of One.”
- It is your magnificent obsession… a clarity and a mystery at the same time. It is your journey, your quest, your pilgrimage, your destiny.