Living for Eternity – Hearing The Call
Mk 1:16-20 16And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 17Then Jesus said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men." 18They immediately left their nets and followed Him. 19When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. 20And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.
Living for His Kingdom!
Jesus called & they followed immediately, this is the call towards the discipleship and eventually leading to Christ-likeness. This is the call of eternity!
Doesn’t it seem strange that these men who walked and lived with Jesus for three years, men who saw miracles almost beyond belief and who must have had great faith, were not supernaturally translated to heaven, but died criminals’ deaths?
But this is also the narrow-way that Jesus promised His followers. When we read about the new Testament believers, their normal, everyday living for Jesus brought on persecution. And most of them were killed for the sake of their beliefs.
What are the factors that discourage people from following the call?
- Many being worldly minded are spending their resources (time and money) on themselves.
- Many do not even recognise the call!
- Many are satisfied with only knowing what these New Testament believers did but not acting on the available knowledge.
- Some may ignore because it could seem like a too-high standard, unachievable for the vast majority.
What do you consider to be the essentials of life?
Safety: feeling of being safe
Food to eat & drink for thirst (+ shelter) [& a safe eternity!]
Yet Jesus showed His priority differently, when the disciples returned with food from the Samaritan city:
Jn 4:31-38 31In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." 32But He said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." 33Therefore the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?" 34Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37For in this the saying is true: 'One sows and another reaps.' 38I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."
To do the will of the Father!
The story of a beggar who was frantically holding on to his rags in hospital after an accident because he has made a knot with his only coin he'd, which is not much in its value (couple of cents)!
What are we grabbing for? Whether it is a luxury or an essential, nothing is more important to God’s heart than reaching the lost and reconciling them back to Him in Christ.
For Whom is the call? God is not looking for strong, rich, confident people.
Look at the people He has called in the Scriptures:
- Abram – didn't had children when God called him to be 'the father of many nations'!
- Jacob – was a 'con-man', cheated his older brother, father and everyone around him
- Moses – complained that he cant speak well.
- Jonah – refused to obey and ran away from God's presence
- Gideon – was hiding from the Philistines when God called him
- Peter – failed so many times but the Lord sustained him.
He is looking for those who are
- willing to listen (live according to what they know),
- committed to a heavenly kingdom,
- coming to Him with their inadequacies and weaknesses,
- ready to be filled with His power and
- live with heartfelt urgency to change the world.
What must we do about the call?
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Be available to God's call
We must begin where we are.
We see long hours of prayer, fasting and waiting on God to move in the Book of Acts.
We are so organized that we make it difficult for the Holy Spirit to direct and use us as we shut ourselves off.
We must live according to what we know, committed to a heavenly kingdom, so that our lives affect not only our home and community—but if possible the entire earth. -
Be committed to the call
Their lives were not compartmentalized into “spiritual” and “secular” activities. Their whole existence was a solid commitment, a life given for the Lord and His kingdom. The reason these believers lived was not to sew tents, teach school or construct buildings. These activities were simply their means of making a living. They lived for the KoG.
They turned their communities upside-down →
"These who have turned the world upside down have come here too." (Acts 17:6)
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Give our weaknesses to God so He can use us.
The Lord does not ask us to be a success or a superhero!
Require humility, obedience& justice
“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6; see Joel 3:10).
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Live your life with the same heartfelt urgency Jesus felt for his disciples.
Invest our life in a lost and dying world → doer of the word.
If we do believe what we say we believe,
we must be different,
carefully and plan deliberately
to live our lives in such a way that they will make a difference
Salvation (Solution to [social] problems): Psycology Self-Help vs the Call
Modern psychology has three affirmations about the self: know yourself; accept yourself; express yourself. It will be chaos if people start to express themselves without considerations!
Lk 9:23-25 23Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?
Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Rom 12:1-2 1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
When the Lord calls you to consecrate your life to Him, He is looking for a living sacrifice.
He wants a total surrender of
- our will,
- our intellect,
- our mind,
- our senses,
- our emotions,
- and our actions.
Our response to God's call will be different individually:
- Some may sense the Lord directing them to pray for the missions
- Yet others will be sending others to the missions.
- Some may follow a vocation to get the means for the part-time mission work
- Others may hear the call to full-time missionary work
We will take a fresh look at how we are investing our life—our time, our energy, our abilities. We should remember that we have only one life. It is our choice (whether we realize it or not) how we invest it. Ask the Lord to to share His perspective & lay His burden on our heart. When we live our life in the light of eternity, the treasures the world values become worthless. Things do not matter any more; souls become precious.
Meditation:
- Do I understand the call for my life?
- What do I need to do about it?
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