Throughout my pastoral ministry, I have been asked to help individuals
discern God’s call. Yet, I must always ask the believer, “Which call are
you talking about?”
The Word of God describes several kinds of
calling, including a general call to everyone, an effectual call to His
people, and what we might describe as a technical call to a particular
vocation in life.
Let’s look at the explanations below;
1. The General Call
God
gives the general call to every creature on earth. We are all called to
turn away from our sins and to turn toward God and His plan for our
salvation. This is the “fundamental prerequisite for the performance of
any Christian service.”1 We are all called to live according to God’s
law; we are all called to a life of service to God and our fellow man.
So, every Christian—indeed, every person on earth—has a calling of a
sort. This is known as God’s general call.
2. The Effectual Call
Many
Christians such as myself believe (along with Calvin and other
Reformers) that there is also an effectual calling. In the effectual
calling, the Holy Spirit improves upon the general call and makes it
effective unto salvation. Those who respond to Christ in faith are the
recipients of this effectual, internal call.
We may also observe from the Bible a third kind of call, a technical call:
3. The Technical Call
This is a calling related to one’s life’s work.
John Calvin put it this way,
“The
Lord bids each one of us in all life’s actions to look to his calling.
For He knows with what great restlessness human nature flames, with what
fickleness it is borne hither and thither, how its ambition longs to
embrace various things at once. Therefore, lest through our stupidity
and rashness everything be turned topsy-turvy, he has appointed duties
for every man in his particular way of life. And that no one may
thoughtlessly transgress his limits, He has named those various kinds of
livings “callings.” Therefore, each individual has his own kind of
living assigned to him by the Lord as a sort of sentry post, so that he
may not heedlessly wander about throughout life.”
Your Duty: To Investigate Your Gifts and Circumstances
Calvin
taught that all men and women have a calling in life, and that it is
their duty to investigate the gifts and circumstances of their lives to
discover and exercise that calling to the glory of God. Of course, this
doctrine brought enormous joy to the humble workers of that day, as it
should today.
Within that broader technical calling, there are
those who are a part of God’s kingdom (that is, those who have received
an effectual call) who are also called to a certain, peculiar work in
the kingdom.
Some Are Called to a Certain, Peculiar Kingdom Work
For
instance, some are called to go and journey to another land (such as
Abraham). Others may receive a technical call to do something as special
as bearing the Son of God (there’s only one of those: Mary!). Others
(and this is our concern at present), having been called to repentance
and faith, having been summoned by God Himself to be a part of His
kingdom, receive a technical call to preach and minister in His name.
Among those we would include the prophets and the apostles.
Discern Your Technical Call Carefully
Amos
grounds his authority to preach to the resistant hearers solely on his
technical call. In fact, he tells us here that he once had another
technical call—to be a sheep breeder and tender of sycamore trees—but
that now the Lord has commanded him to prophesy.
It is likely
that you, or someone you know well (perhaps a spouse, a sibling, a
child, a parent, or a good friend) is in the process of considering
whether or not he or she has a technical call to ministry. Discerning
this carefully, and gaining clarity on the nature of the call, is one of
the most important things they—or you—will ever do.
Pray Until You Know
I
am reminded of my own experience of discerning my technical call. The
significance of this stage of the process was pressed home to me by an
aging Nazarene preacher who once asked me, “Son, are you called?” I
said, “I think so.” He asked again, “Son, I said, ‘Are you called?’” He
grew somewhat agitated. So did I. I answered once more, “Yes, I think I
am.”
He then drew closer to me and looked me right in the eye,
“Son, you’d better know you are called. In the end, your call is all you
got. Let me tell you what that means, boy. When they spread rumors
about you, when they reject you, when they betray you, when they run you
out of town, the only thing that will stand you in good stead will be
that you know that you know that you know that you are called. Now go
home and pray until you know!”
We Can Withstand the Pressure When We Know We Are Called
Those
were hard words. And good words. Amos knew. Amos could withstand the
pressure of the priest and the king because he knew that, he knew that,
he knew that, he was called.
So too must you know that you are called.
[written by Dr. Michael A. Milton]
