Your One and Only Life #6: Calling to Service

There are only two callings. The first is God’s invitation to receive salvation; the second is God’s summons to engage in service.

The second calling is the unique summons to service that God issues to every believer. Once you accept God’s invitation to COME, you are summoned by God to GO as His representative.  In essence, you become His mouth, hands, and feet to serve others. But there can be no calling to service until you accept the calling to salvation. You can’t serve God if you don’t know God.

The calling to service is unique to each believer. Based on His eternal purposes, God gives every Christian a unique serving assignment – one that the person has been created and equipped to fulfill.

Throughout Scripture various Bible characters received a God-given summons to service. Bible scholars refer to these incidents as calling scenarios – the circumstances surrounding the calling of a Bible character.

In the Old Testament, Joshua obeyed God’s summons to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land.1 Queen Esther of Babylon followed through on God’s summons go before her husband, King Artaxerxes, to save God’s people from genocide.2 Isaiah wrote about his summons, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’ [God] said, ‘Go and tell the people ….’”3

In the New Testament, God summoned Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles, while Peter was summoned to be the Apostle to the Jews.4 Luke obeyed God’s summons by writing an account of Jesus’ life, as well as the story of the early Church.5 Lydia carried out her summons to provide housing for traveling missionaries.6 Priscilla and Aquila obeyed God’s summons to help a promising preacher named Apollos fully understand the gospel.7

Throughout history God has given individual believers a unique ministry assignment. The summons given by God to Martin Luther was to restore the truth that “the just shall live by faith.” In the early 1800s William Wilberforce was summoned to the task of ending slavery in the British Empire. In that same time period, God summoned William Carey to evangelize India thereby inspiring believers like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingston to become missionaries.

During the 20th century God continued to call His children to unique assignments. Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, was summoned to evangelize and disciple those in the military. The summons to Mother Teresa was to care for the “poorest of the poor.” Millard Fuller was summoned to provide low cost housing to the poor through Habitat for Humanity. Sixty years ago God summoned Billy Graham to preach the gospel throughout the world.

You may be saying, “Wait a minute!” These people are famous – and that’s true. But they’re only famous because they answered God’s call to do something positive in the world. Beforehand there was nothing that made them stand out in a crowd. By most standards their lives were “ordinary.” But there’s nothing ordinary about their impact for Christ. God does extraordinary things through ordinary people.

In this century, among my friends – “ordinary people,” God summoned Brad to found Movement 121 8 that trains workers in India to make high-design canvass bags that sold in the U.S. with the profits going to the craftsman. Scott leads men’s Bible studies to build deeper relationships among Christian men. Lynn and her late husband Andrew were summoned to launch RISE International9 that so far has built 147 schools in rural Angola that educates over 90,000 students. God summoned Gladys, over 80 years old, to serve as greeter in the Sunday School ministry. For over 30 years my wife Connie has faithfully lived out her calling to serve on the production team at our church. My summons was to launch Designed to Serve®10 to equip Christians to know and live out their unique, God-given calling.

What about you? What is God calling YOU to do?

ENDNOTES
1. Deuteronomy 31:1-3
2. Esther 8:3-6
3. Isaiah 6:8-9
4. Galatians 2:8
5. Luke 1:1-4
6. Acts 16:13-15,40
7. Acts 18:26
8. Movement 121
9. RISE International
10. Designed to Serve®

This blog post © 2013 Designed to Serve®

An excerpt from the upcoming book Your One and Only Life, © 2013 Steven A. Lake. All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted, reposted, photocopied, distributed or sold without the expressed written consent of the author.

The eBook Your Own and Only Life will be published by the end of this year. Please signup to be notified when the book is completed by sending an email to Steve Lake right now.