Photo by Jacob Meyer on Unsplash
PROVING a calling placed on our
life by God is for the large part irrelevant, but one thing about the call is
it’s never a demand.
God never demands we do anything,
even His commands are not demands, for demands place something inconsistent with
and untrue upon the character of God.
God’s commands are imperatives that
we must do if we wish to please Him; they are standards by which we will be
judged. They are also standards by which we can be kept to account to in this
life, for example, within the church. The church quite rightly disciplines its
leaders and members for wanton transgressions against God’s commands when they
hurt or have the potential to hurt the church, its members, or the wider
community. The church has a mandate to stand against abuse of all forms.
If God’s calling is never a demand,
it is also never a suggestion, as if ‘take it or leave it’. It is something
that a person feels compelled to do — to serve their God for the rest of their
lives. They would never say, God demanded
me to do it, and nor would they say, God
said I could if I wanted to.
God’s calling is something that is
communicated by the Holy Spirit directly into the heart of a person — God’s man
or woman. God never limits His call, but our calling can be limited by our
gifting, talents, personality, and experience. Yet God equips the called, and proof of calling is the Spirit’s
clarion call to the gifting we’re about to receive. See how with time we can
truly determine a calling. We say time
will tell and time always does tell.
Nobody can rightly say God made me do it as if we had no
choice. God never makes anyone do anything, but He does issue consequences for
choices, just like in human relationships parents cannot rightfully demand
their adult children do this or that, but for their choices there are
consequences. Love is freedom to choose, to the exact proportion of the
responsibility that is wedded to that freedom. Love is the perfect balance of
freedom with responsibility, as in scales of justice, where the weights must
balance.
God never demands anyone follow
Him, ever. His is one of persuasive invitation where we cannot say no, not
because He holds our arm behind our back, but because He is too good to refuse.
To say that God demands me to serve Him is a manipulation of God to the degree
that we refuse responsibility for our own actions as well as refusing ourselves
the freedom God gives us in Christ. To say that would also put words in God’s
mouth that He would never speak. It makes God human, and a manipulative human
at that. It’s a perversion of a holy God who is wholly other-than human.
Another thing proximal to this
discussion are those times we’re tempted to say, I’m not called to this! Many times, we may not be called to a
particular task or role or season, but God still asks us to endure it; again,
it is no demand, but there are possibly consequences for bailing out of a hardship
we could otherwise endure just because we can.
So, God’s call is freedom, for
love, for service, for choice, to serve Him freely with love by choice. Such a
calling owes us nothing. It is our gift to the One who has gifted us, and gifts
require no return.
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