The call of God is imbedded With the promises of God and are God’s covenant with us. Answering the call activates His covenant….
Acts 2:39 “This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far off—as many as the Lord our God shall call."
A call is for assistance, for sharing information, to express appreciation, to communicate a need or coordinate a plan…our scripture tells us that God is calling on each one of us….
In the movie Bruce Almighty, Bruce, played by Jim Carey, has criticized God, because he doesn’t think God is doing a very good job. He basically is telling God that he could do God’s job better. So now, God is going after Bruce and He uses street signs. Heuses a pager. He uses a truck full of signs. And still, Bruce can’t recognize his call. He can’t recognize that God is specifically speaking to him. Finally, God gets his attention and his life changes drastically ….
God’s call to Moses’ was a burning bush….. His call to Jonah was a great fish…. He called Paul by knocking him out of the saddle….He called to Belteshazzar with the handwriting on the palace wall….He got Jacob’s attention by putting his hip out of socket…..with the disciples it was a boat sinking load of fish, where fish shouldn’t have been… with Balaam it was a talking donkey….and there are many more as well….
Those who are called by God have different ways of responding. Jonah walked away- and caught a ship in the opposite direction from where God wanted him to go.
Moses argued with God- because he said he wasn’t skilled, prepared, or experienced enough to do what God wanted him to do.
Paul didn’t understand what God wanted from him, so he started persecuting Christians, and God had to strike him blind for a few days….
Moses answered God's call by saying, "Who am I?" Gideon answered by making excuses, "I am the least in my father's house.". Zechariah answered by expressing his mistrust, "How shall I know this?" Isaiah answered, "Here am I. Send me."
As I was looking at all of this I realized that a call is much the same as a prayer, it is a request for assistance, to shareinformation, to express appreciation, to communicate a need, or to coordinate and initiate a plan…
One day, when the reformer, Martin Luther noticed the way hispuppy would sit under the table, by his chair, completely focused on any scrap from the hand of his master. (Martin Luther) said, “Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches for scraps from my hand! He has no thought, care or wish for anything else." Oh that we might be so focused on the Father’s desires….
Jesus said to Peter…Luke 22:32 “But I have prayed for you, that your faith would not fail and when you are recovered (and come through the time of testing), strengthen your brethren”.
I want you to see that the Lord is calling upon Peter to be the answer to the prayer which the He is praying…. It’s an amazing revelation when you live as the answer to what God is petitioningin the earth for heaven’s sake….We are praying for the Bahamas, following the devastating hurricane, but there are those who are answering prayer, by providing boots on the ground, bringing aid in all forms. Their prayers went up before the Father, and became the Father’s call and petition to Florida and the nation to answer it….Silent prayers become shouted by heaven, back to earth to those who are called to answer…
A dad took his son to the son’s favorite restaurant on the beach, and when the food arrived, the dad told his son that they would have a moment of silent prayer. Dad finished praying and then waited for his son to finish, and he waited, and waited. Finallythe son finished and his dad asked what he was praying for. The son said, ”how was I to know, it was a silent prayer”.
So, let me submit to you, that our primary mission, is to find out what God is calling for and then commit ourselves to answering the call!! Believe me, God can be anything but silent!!!
Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. v8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. v9 For what man is there among you who, when his son asks for bread, will give him a stone, v10 Or if he asks for a fish, do you give him a snake? Of course not! v11 If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him!?”
It’s pretty clear that the call of God, comes with a father’s heart towards his kids.
It has been well said that Jesus didn’t teach the disciples how to preach, but he did teach them how to pray….and He taught that prayer was the key that brought the kingdom to earth….
Do you ever feel like you’re in a no signal zone….And even when the signal gets out, there’s no signal getting back to you….In other words, if you have come to see prayer as a hit and miss thing…here’s how to increase your answered prayer results…You can begin to pray like you know God will answer….
So, let’s take a look at the prayers God will consistently answer.We have been given some patterns to help us and guide us, when it comes to praying more effectively….
We begin with praise to God for who He is….
Matthew 6:9 “After this manner therefore pray, Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your “.
We acknowledge and praise his authority and Lordship, His power, His holiness, His goodness, and righteousness, His mercy, grace, kindness, and willingness to forgive…. His redemption and salvation, His wisdom and knowledge, His justice, and His faithfulness…..We begin by hallowing His great name!
Next, in our effective prayer….We Should Pray for the Needs of Others… 1 Timothy 2:1,2 says to “offer prayer, supplication, intercession, and giving of thanks on behalf of all men”.
We should pray for Rulers and those in authority, For children and family members - for spouses, relatives, and marriage relationships, For lost sinners, For our enemies, and persecutors, For the sick and suffering, For pastors, deacons, evangelists, missionaries, prophets and teachers -
And of course for all Christians who seek to do the will of God.
Next, we should thank God for what He has already done….
Ephesians 5:20 “Giving thanks always for all things unto God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Just covering what the Lord has done in any given week could be quite a list to give thanks for…. That’s a lot of thanksgiving……We give thanks forall the things that we have already received. Give thanks for all the ways we are blessed and kept, supplied and protected.
Now with all that in order, it is time to make our personal request known to God…. 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you”.
Notice it doesn’t say “just come and whine to Him”…. This is not just about bringing petitions, requests, hurts, disappointments, struggles, and emotional release. It includes those things but needs to go much further…
It’s also about decreeing things into the earth, about declaring and enforcing His promises. it’s about not finishing your prayer time until you get a word from God and you hear a response down in your spirit, that says “This is the way, walk ye in it”!!!! And you get up and go your way with peace and confidence!!
Many times we get to this point and we’re so caught up in His glory, that we forget to even ask Him for anything. And we discover that all we needed was there, in the glory anyway!!!
Ivan was a prisoner in a Soviet prison camp with all it’s horrors, the lack of food, cleanliness and abuses. One day he was praying very intently with his eyes closed, when a fellow prisoner noticed him and said in a mocking manner, "You’re wasting your time, all your prayers won't help you get out of here any faster." Ivan opened his eyes, and said to his fellow inmate, "I do not pray to get out of prison, I’m praying that I may do the will of GodUNTIL get out, not WHEN I get out."
On one occasion, the angel brought Peter out of the prison, but it was prayer that brought the angel to where Peter was until he got out of prison….
Paul put it this way, 1 Corinthians 7:20 “Let every man continue in the same calling in which he was called. 21 Even if you were a prisoner when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. 22 He that is called as a servant of the Lord, is a free man. 23 Since you are now set free, return no longer to the bondage you were enslaved to”.
So, Paul is telling the church to make the most of where you are called right now!
We all have a call upon our lives, to be the instruments which God uses in the earth, to fulfill His plan and His intentions in the earth, right where we are.
(tell someone, “You are His answer, right where you are”)
Helen Roseveare, answered the call of God as a missionary to Zaire, Africa. "A mother at the mission station died after giving birth to a premature baby. She tried to improvise an incubator to keep the baby alive, but the only hot water bottle she had was beyond repair. So she got all the children to pray for a hot water bottle for the baby. That afternoon a large package arrived from England. The children eagerly helped to opened it. Much to their surprise, sure enough, under some clothing was the hot water bottle they had asked for! They discovered that 5 months before they even prayed, a ladies' group, across the ocean had been led of the Lord, to include a hot water bottle in their missionspackage. FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THEY PRAYED!
The call of God flows from the love of God that cares about what is best for us.
The call of God flows from the wisdom of God that always knows what is best for us.
The call of God contains the power of God to accomplish what is best for us.
God’s call gives us a daily perspective… Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God”.
Through out the day, we become responsible that God's will is being done in our lives …. that we walk in forgiveness….That we recognize and resist temptation….His will for Safety as we travel and care for loved ones….. for peace, courage and for boldness…. for Laborers in the harvest of souls…..For opportunities to witness and to teach….For a life pleasing to God – For the fruit of the Spirit in all of our dealings…. And for Unity…
Let me add…. We pray God’s word (For His word shall not come back void)…. We don’t give up and we never stop believing….Wecheck ourselves to see if we are in obedience….We walk in faith, not in worry or anxiety…
Johnny, a very bright little boy, wanted a baby brother more than anything and, he told his mom and dad, that he was willing to do whatever he could to help. His dad, paused for a moment and then replied with a twinkle in his eye, " I'll tell you what, Johnny, if you pray every day for two months for a baby brother, I guarantee that God will give you one!"
Johnny was really excited and went to his bedroom early that night to start praying for a baby brother. He prayed every night for a whole month, but after that time, he began to get skeptical. He checked around the neighborhood and the older kids just made fun of him. You just don't pray for two months and whammo- a new baby brother. So, Johnny quit praying. After another month, Johnny's mother went to the hospital. When she came back home, Johnny's parents called him into the bedroom, and there was a little bundle lying right next to his mother. *……His dad pulled back the blanket and there was -- not one baby brother, but two!! His mother had twins! Johnny's dad looked down at him and said, "Now aren't you glad you prayed?" Johnny said, "Yes, but aren't you glad I quit when I did?"
As we respond to the call and petition of God upon our lives, it’s a lot like throwing out a line from a boat to catch the docking poles, and then you start pulling. Are you pulling the dock to yourself, or are you pulling yourself to the dock? You say Pastor, that is a silly question, *……but when it comes to the call of God, we want to pull God to our will, instead of pulling ourselves into the will of God.
Someone put a statement on Facebook, which was deliberately misworded and they asked if we had read it correctly. We all had read it the way it was supposed to be, not the way it was!
Often we see things happen the way we think they’re supposed to be, instead of how God sees best, and then we conclude that God didn’t answer our prayer….
But until we let go of what we insist was supposed to be, and accept what God says is best, we will continue to accuse God of not answering prayer, or doubt that He will….
May folks suffer unnecessarily and deal with needless anguish and anxiety because they hold on to what never was supposed to be, and try to make it work, instead of finding out what was supposed to be all along and watch God do amazing things !!!
Speaking of what’s supposed to be, A young boy called the pastor of the church which was just around the corner from their house,to ask the pastor to come by and pray for his mother who had been very ill with the flu. The pastor of the corner church knew the family and was aware they had been attending another church down the road. So the pastor asked, "Shouldn't you be asking Brother Simon down the road to come by to pray with your mom?"
The young boy thought for a moment and said, "Yeah, but we wouldn’t want to take the chance that our own pastor might catch whatever this is that Mom has." (what a nice boy)
If there was ever a time when we need to get prayer prioritiesright, it is now….
A pastor of some of the kids who were killed in the Columbine school shooting, stood before the Kansas Senate and prayed this prayer that created a firestorm when it got out to the public…..both positive and negative… Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism. We have worshipped other gods and called it being inclusive. As a society, we have lost our Spiritual equilibrium and abandoned our values; We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle; We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery; We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare; We have killed our unborn and called it choice; We have become a lawless society and call it Civil rights; We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem; We have abused power and called it politics; We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it equality; We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression; We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Some senators walked out of the room and left the building……there was an outcry from others…. We tolerate what shouldn’t be so we end up living without what is supposed to be…. too often the church prays without ever weeping, we give without sacrificing, we live without obedience...so is it any wonder that we sow without reaping?!"
When the Lord says, “This gospel shall be preached throughout the whole earth and then the end shall come”… He is petitioning every believer to answer heaven’s call and draw ourselves into His program for planet earth… How amazing, to be the answer to God’s petitions in the earth… and that by our obedience, we are coordinating with Him to determine when His coming will be and when the end shall be…. See it for yourself….
2 Thessalonians 2:3 “Let no man deceive you by any means, for that Day (the coming of Christ) shall not come, unless there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, (the anti-christ) v4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. v5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things. v6 And you know what is holding him back, from being revealed. v7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains him (the believers) will continue to do so until He is taken out of the way (the rapture).v8 And only then can the lawless one (the antichrist) be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming”.
Can I take a quick moment to make clear that the “appearing of the Lord” in the clouds is when the rapture takes place. The “coming of the Lord” will be at the end of the tribulation, when He comes back with the saints to overthrow the anti-Christ, put Satan in chains and set up the millennial reign of 1000 years of heaven on earth….At the rapture He comes in the clouds, to take the church to heaven with Him, at His coming, He touches planet earth, to remain here for 1000 years.
But the scripture we just read, tells us that we as believers are the force on earth, preventing the anti-christ and the demons of evil and wickedness, from just taking over the world. We are fulfilling the call of God upon us to hold back darkness and spread the gospel of the kingdom.
There is a question that begs to be asked in my message today….and I ask my self this constantly Have we done our part?….God always moves, when he finds a willing instrument….who is committed to participating in the kingdom process….
Speaking of praying effectively……Three preachers had agreed to go on a hunting trip together, and as they waited to start out, they began to discuss the best positions for prayer while their hunting guide finished the packing. "Kneeling is definitely bestfor me," claimed one preacher. "Oh No," another preacher said, "I get the best results standing with my hands outstretched to Heaven." "Well, I don’t agree with either one of you" the thirdpreacher insisted. "The most effective prayer position for me, is lying face down on the floor." Their guide could contain himself no longer. "Hey, fellas, " he interrupted, "I personally don’t agree with any of you, the best praying I ever did was while running as fast as I could with a black bear breathing down my backside”!!! This guy knew that praying had to be combined with DOING SOMETHING!!!
Jesus told us the Father would provide our daily bread, but we still must go out and get it….We can pray for wisdom, but we still need to study His word, which is where we will find it….He said that He was our healer, but we can’t continually abuse and neglect our bodies if we expect to have it…..We can pray that the lost be saved, but until we witness and teach and provide a godly example, we personally may not see it….
In the movie Bruce almighty which I have mentioned, Bruce thinks that his life will get easier if God would just get more involved in his life, that somehow everything about his life will be wrapped up and just the way he thinks it’s supposed to be. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that being closer to the Godmeant Bruce had more problems, not less. He wanted to have itall without any personal responsibility or change.
There's a big difference between being sorry for your sin and just being sorry you were caught. There is a big difference between weeping because you don't like the consequences of your actions and weeping because you let the God of heaven down, Who loved you and gave Himself for you!
Contrary to the thinking of many folks, God is not our personal Genie. Genie’s don’t always have your personal interest in mind, or what is really best for you. Like one guy who found a lamp, rubbed it and when the “BIG BLUE THINGY” appeared, he wished for a million bucks, only to find himself surrounded by a million male deer!!! (I guess Genies have to be programed)
The call of God requires our full participation…..
If we pray without intending to be part of the answer, then we actually have not prayed in faith…. Jesus said the “prayer of faith, would heal the sick and the Lord would raise them up” The prayer of faith, goes the next step and participates in the answer however the Lord chooses or it is not actually the prayer of faith!
There are many things you may do AFTER you pray, but there is nothing you should do UNTIL you pray! While others see difficulty surrounding every opportunity a person of prayer, sees opportunities around every difficulty.
Every miracle Jesus ever performed, started out as a problem or an impossibility! Our impossibilities are the opportunity for God to show us who He really is and what He can really do!!! It’s a chance to let Him be God….
While it seems the world is trying to pull God down to their level on their terms, God is trying to pull us up to His level and give us a bird’s eye view of the amazing world on His terms! Raise your hand if you have something big to pray about and you need God to move in a BIG way.
Jesus’ invitation still stands today… Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.v29 Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the fullness of My grace. I won't lay anything on you that isoverwhelming or that is not my best for you. v30 Keep in relationship with me and you'll learn to live free and unencumbered."
Oh, church, let’s get set free indeed! To fully believe that who He calls He empowers…..
When Paul saw the light of freedom shining from heaven upon Stephen, it changed something deep inside of him…. When the crowd saw the anointing on those ordinary guys who came out of the upper room they had to have what they had…. When the disciples went out with the same spirit in them that was in Jesus, the lame walked, the oppressed were delivered and the dead were raised…. When John was boiled in oil and left on the Isle of Patmos, he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and brought the world the book of Revelation and we were able to look through that window into the future…
Romans 12:1 For this reason I make request to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you will offer your selves as an offering to God, which is the worship that is yours to give him. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 3 For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone who is among you not to think more highly of yourself than it is right to think, but to think {wisely}, as God has given the measure of faith to each one.".
So what does God call you…... You are accepted, a joint heir who shares in His inheritance, His Spirit and his life lives in you, you are His body in the earth, you are complete in Him, you are chosen of God, anointed with power, love and a sound mind, you are seated in heavenly places with Him, far above principalities, and powers, you have direct access, and you share His nature. He works in you and through you to accomplish what He wants you to do…
2 Timothy 1:6 “For this cause I put you in remembrance, that you stir up the gift of God, which is in you by the laying on of hands”
Let’s just take some time to activate the words of 2 Timothy 1:6 and just break some things and clear the way for God to begin to stir up, and bring forth His gifts, His abilities through us, His demonstrations of His Spirit….
God is arranging, empowering, provisioning before you get there, He is releasing, over ruling, bringing forth, clearing up, shutting down, opening up, closing, raising up, confirming, making the impossible, possible, making a way where there is no way, healing, restoring, restraining, repairing and creating what has never existed before….
