Tag Archives: servant

The Calling of God (Being a Christian)

by

0


You’ve heard of people who say they are “Called by God” to do something.   But did you know every man and woman has a “Calling”?  Well, Yea!  The first calling you’re called to do is accept Jesus, God’s Son.  Some have termed it “Believe” in God’s Son.  And, certainly, there’s nothing wrong with that term.  But do people today understand the meaning of “Believe”?  Likely not.  Words and their real meaning aren’t very well applied these days. 

When we’re called to “Believe” it means, not only to understand that Jesus is the Son of God, but to put everything you are and own under His ownership.  After you’ve done that, everything you are and everything you own belongs to Him.  He has the exclusive right to do with you and your belongings as He sees fit.  This is what “Believing in the Son of God, Jesus, means.  I’d bet you’ve been told or understood it differently. 

The second “Calling” has to do with those who have given themselves to the leadership of Jesus.  And this calling is what most people associate with the word “Calling”.  Once He has accepted you as His disciple (student and servant), He will have certain tasks for you to accomplish for His Father’s Will.  Now, it might be that He will call you into a ministry or something rather obviously “Jesus”.  But it might also be that He will allow you to keep many of the current trappings you now possess.  Dunno. 

But regardless your “calling” from the Lord of Glory, the calling is a full time and continuous situation.  You no longer belong to yourself, regardless what you want to believe.  He can’t lie and He doesn’t take His calling back.  People might throw away the arrangement between Jesus and themselves.  But Jesus does not.  You will be held accountable for whatever task He has given you to do.

He has said that the “Wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear it’s sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit”.  This calling He has placed upon you will be such that you will not know what, exactly, He wants you to do next.  This is by design, lest anyone boast that they know the “Way” (Another misunderstood word).  You’ll need to submit yourself to His leading every second of every day if you want to know His will according to your “Calling”.

I just thought I’d clarify a few items regarding what it takes to be a Christian.

By His Grace.

The Deer

by

0


I watched helpless yesterday, as three dogs killed a deer on the other side of  the rushing water.  No sticks to throw.  No voice loud enough to drive them off.  No stones on the muddy bank to throw.  No gun.  And, in the end, there was no hope for the deer as she thrashed bellowing like a bear.  In a short time she would be no more.  And by the time I had arrived her legs had become useless.  Nothing I could have done would change her situation.   I ponder her fate.  How horrible to end her graceful life at the teeth of such ravaging. 

Now I ponder my own future when I too will encounter my last moments.  As all men will do.  Will I have lived for the Glory of He who never dies again?  What pain He endured at the hands of hateful men.  And He did it for us all.  Will I embrace my certain time as He? 

This Deer might have been food on the table of a hunter.  If the circumstances of her death were different.  And yet, look.  How has her death become a testimony for all of us.  Without her terror, this post would never had become.  Now we are left with a ponderous task.  Shall we pitty her and forget her in a moment as we go about our day’s tasks?   Or will we allow that her death impact us toward God’s throne.  May the Lord allow that her testimony of life entering death become a reminder to us that we too are bound for the same place.  And yet we are man, we are not animal.  We make choices.  She could not but obey.  And what is there in your life which the Lord might use to wake you from slumber?  Surely there are more testimonies regarding death.  This whole world yells out the message of God: “I made you that you might seek My face.  Look around you and listen to what is before you.  You will soon come to Me and receive the reward of your life.  What do you say regarding My Son?”

Lord, give me strength to see Your way.  I wish to do Your Holy will for the sake of Your Holy name.  Glorify Yourself in this man.  My time is surely coming.  And I, like all men, have never been to that place.  We are like grass in our way.  And You have determined the end of our days here.  This is a place of testing.  May I move through this place with the power of Your Glorious hand.  May Your Will be done forever.

By His Grace.

Untouchable.

by

1


A cloud drifts across the sky.  Silent, untouchable, distant, and beyond our understanding.  Watch how it moves from your sight.  The cloud neither cares that you see it, nor that you ponder it.  It is simply obeying.

So it will be for the one who finds the will of God.  Moving as one driven by the unseen, he is intent on fulfilling.  His motivation will be silent, untouchable, distant, and beyond our understanding.  Watch how he moves from your sight.  He cares neither that you see him, nor that you ponder him.  He is simply obeying.

By His Grace.

A twig of Flame.

by

0


I woke and rekindled the fire.  And as my bones warmed, I pondered the fate of the tree before me.  At one time it was a sprout.  What happened to that tree, and what went on around it, only God knows.  But the time came when it was cut down.  Perhaps a man cut it down.  Perhaps God’s will in the wind and age has cut it down.  But now it serves it’s final purpose: to enrich the life of other things.

Are we not like trees in that sense?  Yet, we are so unlike that tree.  For the tree never complained regarding what it was asked to endure.  Nor was it’s sickness or cutting down a source of complaint.  “Like a lamb He was led to the slaughter”. 

I say to myself, “Come on now!  Can’t you endure even one minute without a thought of complaint?”  Am I a servant of the Most High God?  Am I willing to be led to the slaughter for the sake of His Holy will and the sake of those who will benefit from His work in me?  I am frustrated by self.  Nothing built by man will survive the coming judgment.  May I learn to live under the rule and will of my God!

Father, please bless Your servant that he might serve You with a faithfulness born of Your will. 

By His Grace.

What Have We Learned?

by

0


What have we learned?  Jesus, even Jesus desired that the cup of trial might be taken from Him.  Yet what did He say?  “Yet, not my will but Yours be done”.  What have we learned?  Even Paul the Apostle said that he had learned to give thanks, praise, and glory to God during every situation.  And that he had even learned to be content in times of trouble.  And we read that Paul had encountered many seriously threatening situations for the name of Jesus.  What have we learned?

Are you floundering in troubles that you can’t fix and do not understand?  Get up and get on your knees before the Most High God.  What have we learned?  What was Job’s response to terror and loss?   He praised God as the One who had every right to take what He had given.  What have we learned?

Have we learned to do these things?  Or are we still only going to nod yes to the words we read.   Many read about the appropriate response to troubles.  But when it comes their turn, they revert to selfish sorrow.  We are not called to be victims.  We are called to be warriors in God’s army.  When a soldier goes in to battle he doesn’t consider himself a victim.  Nor should God’s people consider themselves slaughtered.  That soldier will swing his sword till there is no strength left, for that is what he is called and trained to do.  God’s people also should perform as a Holy family when they are called upon to lift their heads in suffering.

To have learned something is to be able and willing to do it.  Reading about it and looking back over the history of others will do you no good if you can’t find that same strength now.  Look, if you are having troubles praising God in your plight, at least give God the Glory He deserves.  Soon you will find the strength to stand in this battle you’ve been sent to encounter.  His promise is that He will lift you up.  Look to Him and give Him praise.

By His Grace.

Man is Not Animal.

by

1


A dog does what a dog does.  A rabbit, likewise, does what a rabbit does.  Fish do what they were meant to do.  And so it goes through out all God’s creation.  Oh, we can train them to do a few tricks.  But in the end, they are just a dog, rabbit, and a fish.  They obey what God has made them to do.  But what of man?

From the fall of Adam till now, and till God does away with everything wicked, man has hated his Creator.  There have been very few who earnestly desired to please Him.  The vast population of earth has openly hated their God.  I look around me and marvel at how openly man hates God’s name and ways.  And I am perplexed even at the sinful nature in myself which wishes to live without God.

What shall be said regarding man?  Hasn’t it already been said?  The verdict of guilty has ben rendered on all men.  The only way out is the forgiveness of Jesus.  Man is not animal.  God demands that all men turn back to their Creator.  There’s no room for debate about this.  You might debate what I just said, but God doesn’t. 

By His Grace.