The Question of Calling

We each need to focus on what the Lord has asked us to do. I always thought the normal progression for a minister would be to pastor a local assembly. No different than in the military, I was looking for the next promotion, be it the next stripe or job, that would move me to the next point in my career.

For the first few years we ministered through JAMA, I believed that principle was the same. If the Lord gave me a deeper anointing, then that was a sign a promotion was in the offing. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He gives you a deeper anointing so you can minister to those around you with greater depth. Does that mean you are destine to stay were you are in ministry, of course not.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to the latest message from Steven Furtick at Elevation church in Charlotte, NC. He’s preaching a series entitled ‘Sticks and Stones’. This weeks message is focused around the anointing of David. He draws many parallels to our lives and the calling the Lord has given each of us. The message had many ‘WOW’ moments for me. Simple truths spoken in a simple manner.

I want to encourage you to listen to part one of the series, ‘Sheep & Oil’. It’ll take about 50 minutes, so plan accordingly. Getcha (that’s a southern thing) a piece of paper and pencil, you may want to take a few notes. http://jamaministry.org/?p=1299

The Lord has uniquely gifted each of us to reach people in and around our lives. Instead of looking for the next promotion, embrace the place the Lord has you.

Blessings
The Question of Calling
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2 by Os Hillman

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? (Eph 1:18-19).

I walked up to the man and said, “Hello, my name is Os. What’s yours?” His name was also Os – Os Guinness. It was the first time he had ever had such an experience. We chuckled about our unique names.

Os Guinness was named after Oswald Chambers. He has become a well-known contemporary writer and has a real interest in the subject of “calling” just as I do. He has written a masterful work entitled, “The Call.” In it he shares some important truths about “calling”.

“What do I mean by ‘calling’? For the moment, let me say simply that “calling” is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.

There is a distinction between a later, special calling and our original, ordinary calling. Selfishness prefers the first, but stewardship respects both. A special calling refers those tasks and missions laid on individuals through a direct, specific, supernatural communication from God. Ordinary calling, on the other hand, is the believer’s sense of life-purpose and life-task in response to God’s primary call, ‘follow me,’ even when there is no direct, specific, supernatural communication from God about a secondary calling.

In other words, ordinary calling can be seen in our responsibility to exercise a high degree of ‘capitalist-style’ enterprise about how we live our lives. For example, the servants in Jesus’ parable for the talents and pounds were assessed according to how they ‘got on with it’ when the master was away. In this sense no follower of Christ is without a calling, for we all have an original calling even if we do not all have a later, special calling. And, of course, some people have both.”*

We are all called to Someone first, then something. As we grow in our knowledge and obedience to Christ, God fulfills our calling in life.