Monthly Archives: July 2008

Whatchama-Called

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“I feel called to serve in the youth ministry” . . . “My wife and I feel called to a different church” . . . “I felt called into ministry at an early age” . . . “I feel called to talk to you about this.”

This kind of language about feeling called, feeling led, feeling drawn by God to a particular ministry, task, or direction is quite common among Christians. You probably hear it often. You probably say it yourself from time to time. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself whether such an idea of an internal subjective feeling of being called to some place, thing, or task is biblical? Have you ever wondered whether your feelings about God calling you may, in fact, be your own personal desires, wishes, longings, ambitions, or pursuits?

It may startle you to learn that nowhere in the Bible do we find an example of a person “feeling called” by God without an external, verifiable call. Most often when the Bible talks about God’s calling, it refers to the call to repentance, salvation, or covenant faithfulness—a general call to all, though it is often coupled with God’s sovereign call of election, or choosing (Isaiah 48:12; Jer 7:13; Matt 22:14; Rom 8:28–30; 9:24; and many more). Thus, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:14, “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Another kind of calling in the Bible came in the form of an audible (and sometimes even visible) calling from God to a particular task or ministry. Abraham’s calling to the land of Canaan was audible, visible, and repeated (Heb 11:8). Moses’s call came audibly from a burning bush (Exod 3:4). The calling of Bezalel to the task of crafting the tabernacle in the wilderness came by an audible call from God through Moses (Exod 31:1–6). And who could forget Samuel’s repeated call by God in 1 Samuel 3:2–11, where the voice was so clear that he thought it was that of his master, Eli, nearby. Similarly, Paul’s call to be an apostle (Rom 1:1) was no inner conviction or nagging desire to serve, but a brilliant encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ Himself on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–18).

Another type of call—a bit more subtle, but genuine—came from the Holy Spirit through the official leaders of the Christian community. This official call by the Church was accompanied by an official appointment, usually marked by the laying on of hands. Acts 13:2–4 gives a good example of this kind of authentic call to ministry. As the official leaders of the church were gathered together, praying and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). In response to this word from the Lord, the leaders of the church appointed Barnabas and Saul to their ministries, laying hands on them and praying for them, which was a common means of ordination to ministry in the ancient world.

Whether or not Saul and Barnabas “felt” called to this ministry was irrelevant. Certainly, Paul had earlier experienced a dramatic conversion and received a general call directly from the mouth of Christ, but the specific “where” and “when” of the call were still being discovered. Perhaps Paul and Barnabas had inner yearnings to pursue that particular ministry from Antioch; or maybe they had been resisting the idea. But their personal feelings really weren’t decisive. Instead, the Holy Spirit called these men and revealed His will through the patient, prayerful, and wise discernment of the leadership and community in which they were ministering day to day. Whether the Holy Spirit spoke audibly, we can not know for sure. But we do know that the Holy Spirit spoke through the leadership and the community, that is, through the Church.

So, how does a person discern a calling into ministry, a call by God to a particular task? This is not an easy question to answer, but I can trace the contours of what this should look like. First and foremost, a Christian should be aware of his or her general call to holy living and Christian testimony, the call all believers have by virtue of being called to salvation through Jesus Christ (1 Cor 7:15; Gal 5:13; 2 Thess 2:14). This includes a call to walk in newness of life, to love the brethren, and to proclaim Christ near and far. It implies a committed relationship to the Church universal and local, to build up the body of Christ through humble service, to give and live sacrificially. These things constitute the clear calling to which all Christians are to respond daily. They require no special recommendation or invitation, but they do, of course, require constant reminders and repeated exhortations. We too quickly forget the calling to which we are all called!

Second, the biblical pattern of calling to specific ministries or tasks involved either an audible (and often repeated) call from God, or an official invitation by legitimate spiritual leadership confirmed by the Church community. In the Old Testament this kind of call came through the God-appointed prophets, priests, and kings. In the New Testament it came through the pastors, elders, teachers, and leadership within the worshiping and praying community of the Church or even through the counsel of wise, mature, and trusted brothers and sisters in Christ.

For the last decade or so I have generally lived by a maxim that was advocated by an old professor of mine, who is now, remarkably, a colleague. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it, but it made a great impression on me. In the context of questions about God’s leading and calling, he said, “I don’t do anything I’m not asked to do.” At that moment I believed those words. I ran through the instances of callings and commands in the Bible and realized it fit quite nicely. So I abandoned the typical approach of “I feel called” and decided that my personal feelings on the matter would be the last and least of my criteria for determining God’s will for me. If God wants me to do something, He will call me as He called those in the Bible—through the wise, prayerful guidance and shepherding of His ordained leaders and through the Spirit-filled community. When I finally accepted this biblical approach to calling, I felt liberated. No longer would I have to worry about missing God’s call, misunderstanding His call, aggressively pursuing opportunities, sending out resumes, competing for positions. God would call in His timing and by His own means. This doesn’t mean we remain passive. The general calling of the Christian to loving, serving, and living the Christian life will keep us all busy as we await His various specific calls to particular tasks. But this perspective does mean we aren’t constantly on the hunt for bigger and better opportunities, as if ministry were a competitive career field in which our primary goal is to get ahead. Nor does this mean that we say “yes” to every leader’s whim or friend’s request. Nobody can do everything, but all of us are called to do something.

The idea of “feeling called” to the ministry, “feeling called” to a task, “feeling called” to a particular place—this idea of feeling called to anything has become far too common in Christian parlance. It must stop. It is not biblical. And it can be absolutely disastrous. How many people have gone into ministry or into the mission field because they felt called. How many leaders and church communities have accepted such people because they felt they could not counter a personal calling from God? Don’t misunderstand me. A person may feel compelled, gifted, even “called” to ministry, but unless that urge and desire is confirmed by God’s chosen means of calling and sending from His community through the Holy Spirit, the feelings should never be the sole—nor even the primary—basis for action. In many cases (perhaps in most), our personal feelings on the matter are completely irrelevant.

Sancti-fried?

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We’ve all been there. Slowly climbing the narrow road of the Christian life, we suddenly take a bad step and end up blowing it . . . again. The progress we had made along that precarious path becomes pointless as we slide down that craggy ledge and find ourselves once again brushing the dirt off our white robes and bandaging bruises that mark us as defeated saints. As we ponder whether it’s even worth pressing on, Satan taunts us from the nearby outcroppings, urging us to just give up. Even worse, our more “saintly” brothers and sisters in Christ shake their heads and cluck their tongues as they peer at us accusingly from farther up the slope.

The life of spiritual growth, impressively called “sanctification,” can often feel like an exercise in absolute and utter futility. Frustration, exasperation, exhaustion, disillusionment, depression—sadly, these are some of the feelings that accompany the failures of struggling saints as they desperately try to live the Christian life, putting to death the desires of the flesh and living out the fruit of the Spirit. The seemingly endless cycle of sin, repentance, sin, repentance, sin, repentance can nauseate us, making us wonder whether real sanctification is even possible in this life . . . convincing many that it’s not.

Let’s face it, in many of our approaches to the Christian life, it’s easy to get burned out, wiped out, worn out . . . sancti-fried.

Broken Promises or False Hopes?

One cause of our frustration with sanctification is our unrealistic expectation. We’ve heard so many stories about people being “delivered” from alcoholism, drug addiction, or sexual immorality. Testimonies shine brilliantly with flashy conversions in which a person’s life alters dramatically, in which a new birth seems to have completely killed the old man. The struggling Christian who endures the painfully slow process of sanctification might be able to handle hearing about these miraculous transformations if it wasn’t for those few who try to force their amazing experiences on everybody else. “God saved me and delivered me instantly from such-and-such . . . and He’ll do the same for you!” But when my instant deliverance doesn’t come, whose fault is it? God’s? Surely not! It must, of course, be my fault because I’m just too weak, too faithless, too immature, too carnal. Or maybe I’m just not really saved. If the Spirit of God did it for her, why won’t He do it for me?

It is true that God promised to work in us “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), and that we were “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10), and that it is His mighty Spirit, not our weak flesh, who yields through us the fruit of good works against which “there is no law” (Galatians 5:23). However, it is also true that God produces in some thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown (Matthew 13:8, 23). We forget that God displays His glory in us and through us according to His own timing and for His own purposes. It is not for the clay in the Potter’s hands to say that God would get greater glory if He would fire us in His kiln today rather than constantly form us in His hands through a painful process of molding, making, casting, and re-casting. As Paul said, “The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it?” (Romans 9:20). Trusting God for sanctification means trusting that He will work in different ways and at different times with different saints.

As Good as It Gets?

In the movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson plays an author with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder struggling to cope with the real world. In one scene Nicholson’s character, after trying to barge in on his psychiatrist for an emergency meeting, stares into the waiting room filled with nervous clients and blurts out, “What if this is as good as it gets?”

After many years of struggling with temptation and sin, growing sometimes in great leaps and other times in almost imperceptible steps, I have learned that a common experience among most Christians is struggle. Just when our struggle brings victory, it opens up to a whole new (or even old), conflict with sin. And in the midst of the conflict, with no end in sight, we can easily grow disillusioned, wondering, “Is this even real? Does God even want me to be righteous? Why doesn’t He help?”

I’ll never forget the words of an older professor of mine back in Bible College when he answered a question about struggling with sin. “Young Christians are always coming to me saying, ‘I’m struggling with this sin, or I keep struggling with that sin,’ as if there’s something wrong with struggling with sin. That’s good! Struggle! It’s when you give up struggling that something’s wrong.”

Those words are golden. And they have helped lead me to a very important conclusion about sanctification—the struggle is normal. Absolute victory and absolute defeat should not be the common experience of the Christian life. The frustrating, unending, wearisome struggle between the flesh and the Spirit and the resulting ups and downs of the Christian life is, in most cases, as good as it gets.

Are you struggling with sin? Wondering if God is hearing your desperate pleas for strength to break the unending cycle of temptation and transgression? Ready to just give up, surrender to the flesh? Are you sancti-fried?

Join the club. We’re all there. And if you’re not there with us—if you’re a super-saint who thinks you have sanctification down to a science—go away. I want to hang out with fellow dirty, ragged, beaten-up pilgrims struggling with daily sin, putting up a brutal fight against temptation, and hoping for deliverance with an irrational faith. Oh, and if you’re one of those who has given up, who thinks the promise of sanctification is a sham, come back. The promises you believed about the nature and process (and even the means) of spiritual growth were probably not the promises of God, but of men.

Listen, saints, until we’ve struggled with sin to the very end (Hebrews 12:4), our journey on the rocky road of sanctification isn’t over. The good news—and the one we so quickly forget—is that none of us is on this journey alone.

[Want more on a classical and community-oriented approach to the Christian life? Read Part 4, “RetroSpirituality” in RetroChristianity: Reclaiming the Forgotten Faith available at Amazon or your favorite online bookseller.]