Skip to main content

When God Calls Your Name

The telling of a personal testimony is a glimpse of God in action. They are vignettes God gives us of a life that has been touched by Him and through the Holy Spirit has overcome the powers of darkness. With the world surrounding us on every side the lustful attractions toward being carnal or giving in to the things of the flesh can be overwhelming. A Godly testimony brings us hope. But if we look at a testimony with an "I am glad God works for you attitude" then we are defeated before we start. I often wonder why so many think that God cannot touch their lives as He does in so many others. Why is it that so many think they are just not good enough for God to reach out and love? When Jesus called the Apostles do we think He did it because they were perfect people? No, not at all. If you study their lives you will find He had a tremendous amount of work to do in them. They failed often, questioned often, were faithless often, did not understand the things He taught often, and in His darkest hour, just before His arrest and betrayal, they fell asleep when He asked them to wait and pray with Him. Even Peter, denied Him three times. In short, they were imperfect men. But God is patient and suffers long with us. His desire is to perfect us but that perfection takes time; we call it sanctification.

Sanctification
Sanctification is the process whereby God saves and sets us aside for His work. It is the process by which we become different, holy, Christlike 2 Cor. 5:17. At the point of belief, John 3:16, He then uses His word, the Bible, as a tool revealing to us more about Him. This process is set in action from the moment we are convicted of our sin. It is at that time He begins His work in us. It is a work of calling at first that we notice through a realization that we have sinned against God and that we are separated from a relationship with Him and Heaven. If we positively respond to His call, salvation will ensue and sanctification becomes positional, we are His. At salvation, the time at which we confess our sin and receive Him into our heart and life, John 1:12-13, He fills and baptizes us with His Spirit, 1 Cor. 12:12-13. It is at this point that we become a member of the Body of Christ, His church, and our names are written in the Lambs (Jesus') Book of life, Rev. 21:27. It is at that very moment He begins that continual sanctifying work, a work that will last a lifetime. No, none of us will ever be good enough for God but He specializes in creating the perfect from the imperfect.

As a "love God with all my heart" Christian I daily endeavor to live for Him and in His will. I am not perfect but I know that one day I will be like Him when the sanctifying process is complete, 1 Thess. 5:23. In the meantime, I live to be a vessel useful to His work through prayer, Bible study and communion with Him daily. My eyes no longer see life through carnality and lusts for pleasure but rather, have been transformed to view life through His eyes. Again I am not perfect and I still struggle but as the apostle Paul stated,

Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
(2 Cor. 4:16-18)

So then, Sanctification is a transformation process by which the Christian becomes day by day, more and more, like Christ. The things we see, hear, feel, speak and touch are all being transformed into the way that Jesus sees, hears, feels, speaks and touches. This process by proxy, buffers us with the things of the world and the old self rises within and sometimes yearns to be gratified with what our previous life engrossed itself in. This causes momentary light afflictions, battles, that we must fight. But the sanctifying process of transformation, Rom. 12:2, helps us to focus on the Lord and the things that are eternal. All the world offers is temporary, will burn up and leaves us empty handed. But the things unseen, those things the Christian focus' upon, they are eternal. This is why you will often hear the Christian state, “this earth is not my home.”

Going Deeper
In my book, "Those Who Are Wise Will Shine" I try to expose for the reader how God constantly worked to sanctify a people, Israel, for His work in the world. He used them as the willing and imperfect vessels chosen to protect the special truths about who God is, how He created all things, and how He alone can offer eternal life to all who will believe. If you read the book you will engage in a journey down a sacred path. You will follow His work through the bloodline of Adam up until the birth of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. In reading it you will discover just exactly how God works, what things are important to Him, and why some of those "hard-to-understand" events pictured in Scripture had great purpose in protecting His way of salvation.

If you carefully follow the lineage revealed in Old Testament Scripture you can see for yourself the awesome and amazing Hand of God at work in a way that becomes personal. You see, He has entrusted that same word of faith He showed through Adam, that was passed down to Noah, continued onward through Shem, passed to Abraham, promised through Isaac, appearing in Jacob and his twelve sons and eventually culminating in the Words of the Messiah who passed it to His disciples and finally on to believers today. It is an amazing journey of faith. In studying it you can see for yourself why we, as Christians, experience trial, why we are convicted by the Holy Spirit and told, "don't do that," and why we are called to be a separate and sanctified people. If we lived always as those around us who do not know or have a relationship with God then how will others be able to see, desire, and know Him for themselves? The short answer is they wouldn't and the world would soon perish and all would die without any hope in their lives.

Every life is a treasure to God, and those who give theirs to Him become a special treasure. The journey is not easy, we must be broken like a wild horse or the potty training of a puppy. But God specializes in doing that work in us if we only trust Him to do so. You are special before God. If you are reading this and do not have a personal relationship with God, or you are unsure that your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, then you are being called to be a part of His world and life changing--eternal life bestowing work. But you must listen to His call and agree with Him that you are not good enough on your own. His work must be done His way and we must devote our hearts to allow Him to change us from the inside out that we may be useful to His work. What an exciting and overwhelming thought, that the King of the Universe--the Creator of the world--the Lord of Lords would ask you, by name, to team up with Him, become a member of His family, and to be used by Him in His eternal work!! What a magnificent calling!! The work is not easy at times and will come with tears as He breaks our death grip from the things of the world which only exist to destroy us and the lives of others, but the end result is eternally rewarding.

Those Who Are Wise Will Shine, Understanding the Work of God in Your Redemption can be purchased at Lifeway Christian Stores, Amazon, Google Books, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-million and from the publisher, Thomas Nelson's, Westbow Press. 

Read it for the Bible study journey of a lifetime!

God Bless!
Michael L. Henderson
Author/Pastor
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

25 Reasons to Believe - In Jesus FREE EBOOK

FREE EBOOK click to download - When book comes up click down arrow on Upper Right to save a copy . A while back the Barna Group released a report titled, "Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church." 1  Under reason two, " Teens’ and twenty-somethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow" they write:  "A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%)."  If one takes a look at the modern church-scape I can see why. The gap between those pastors and teachers that are fired up about Jesus and those that do not preach all of th
4 comments
Read more

Fornication - The Acceptable Sin?

In the Bible there are several sexual sins that are categorized under the term,"Sexual Immorality." Not the least of these is, "Fornication." However fornication has become an outdated, and in many places, the acceptable sin in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As a matter of fact, many do not even know what the term "fornication" means. Since the advent of the modern Bible translation, many have never heard of it. This article focuses on what the Scripture says about this out-of-control acceptable sin. Fornication is mentioned thirty-six times in the Bible (MT), thirty-two times in the New Testament. In almost all modern translations the word has been substituted with, "sexual immorality" and has come to mean any number of sexual sins. However, sin (missing the mark) is still sin and sin still separates a person from God. So why has this sin become so acceptable even in modern churches???? UPDATE : Here is a testimony of life
5 comments
Read more

The Bride of Christ Has Made Herself Ready!!

The Bible teaches of an upcoming Wedding Day that the Church should be on cloud nine over!! Rev. 19:7-9 states: Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come , and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God." The passage above speaks of two distinct events, the Marriage of the Lamb and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Both of these events are reminiscent of the ancient Jewish wedding ceremony where the Bride would become betrothed to her Groom and he would go away to build her a home. In the meantime she would wait anxiously for his return with shouts from his wedding party of "The Bridegroom Comes!" When the shouts were he
2 comments
Read more

Understanding Grace…without it no one can be saved!

Years ago as a pastor, I faced an issue concerning the topic of “Grace.” I had noticed some congregants who were taking Grace to the extreme and beginning to teach that since our sins were bought and paid for at the cross—all of them, past, present, and future—there was no need to strive against sin. Thanks to our Lord, this was noticed and the He quickly allowed it to be curbed. This heresy occasionally rears its head in Christian circles and indeed must be stopped before it becomes out-of-control. The good thing is that a proper understanding of Grace can arrest the heresy in its steps. Because this false perception thrives in loose living, many well-meaning Christians go completely to the opposite extreme and throw the Biblical teaching of “Grace” out altogether. That too is heresy. How should we approach it? Grace, as a doctrine, should always be presented in its entirety. By that I mean, a starting definition, followed by why it is important, and concluding with keeping it scri
15 comments
Read more

Guest post: Hind's Feet

Adrian Bateman, 2016          The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like hind’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills. — Habakkuk 3:19 For most human beings the primary goal of life, after survival, is the pursuit of happiness. Indeed it’s one of an American’s “unalienable rights”. But what is happiness? The definition of happy is surely situationally derived. For the hungry it would be having enough food; for the homeless, a home. For the average person it might be having more time, more leisure, more friends, more comforts, more things. Ultimately, happiness involves the removal of obstacles and the correction of problems so that we might live a life without struggle. Or, at least, without what we view as onerous or unnecessary struggle. But this is not God’s definition of happiness. No. True peace—biblical peace, that deep inner peace which we cannot explain—is found only in the presence of God. When we are continually aware of the Pr
Post a Comment
Read more