“If you can do anything else and be at peace with God—do that.” These are the words from our elders/mentors as we told them of our call to minister in Jesus Name, leaving our old life behind. We were public school teachers. We had worked hard to achieve education to teach, but then God called us out of teaching elementary students to teaching/preaching His Good News to everyone who would listen. To be sure of the calling of God upon our lives, we were also told, “if you feel compelled and cannot think of doing anything but this, then obey the call.” “May God be with you.”
No one accepts the call to full time service to God’s work without deep contemplation; praying to discern if the call is from God. No one drops everything to follow without first seeking advice of spiritual mentors asking if they see what God sees in us. And above all, no one says yes to this vocation for life without God initiating the call while preparing our hearts for service. This requires many hours of asking God what He wants while immersing ourselves in being still to listen. God will put specific people in our lives to affirm us and lead us while caring for our needs as He prepares us. He did it for us, God does it for all who will answer His call and follow His direction and guidance. Let go, and let God do what He does best.
No one accepts the call of God through Jesus without passionate surrender to God. Paul is one example of many. What a great legacy for us!
1 Corinthians 9, The Message
1-2 And don’t tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I’m perfectly free to do this—isn’t that obvious? Haven’t I been given a job to do? Wasn’t I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren’t you yourselves proof of the good work that I’ve done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can’t deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!
3-7 I’m not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don’t seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master’s brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don’t dairy farmers get to drink their fill from the pail?
8-12 I’m not just sounding off because I’m irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, “Don’t muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it’s threshing.” Do you think Moses’ primary concern was the care of farm animals? Don’t you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don’t we who have never demanded deserve even more?
12-14 But we’re not going to start demanding now what we’ve always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ. All I’m concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.
15-18 Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or question my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!
19-23 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
24-25 You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.
26-27 I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No lazy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
Daily surrender. “Place Your Life Before God”
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”—Paul, Romans 12:1-2, MSG
God calls us to specific ministry as we give all we are to all He is in surrender. “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 NLT He will be our wisdom and strength.
God calls. God equips. God sends. God guides. God provides. All for the glory of God while bringing out His best in us. God never fails. His love is unchanging.
“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!” Ephesians 3:20, MSG
All believers are called no matter what your vocation to help people know, believe, and follow Jesus! We were created to praise Him and tell others His redemption story for His glory!
“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others.” 2 Corinthians 5:11
“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, NIV
Trust God. Tell the story of Jesus so they will know and believe.
Lord,
There are many thoughts but our primary thought is to love more than enough so others will see and know your love that save us for eternity. I surrender all. Give us wisdom, insight and understanding to be, love, serve, and tell in your Name for your glory! Thank you, Lord!
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 