GOD CALLS YOU TO RECEIVE HIS PROMISE (ACTS 2:39)
God calls everyone to Himself. This is what the message of the Bible and Jesus is all about. The human race needs God most of all. God gave us our King, Jesus who rules to bring the blessings of the promise of God to this earth. Jesus possesses the authority and desire to give his Father’s special gift to us: the Holy Spirit. Can you think of any gift more amazing? The Holy Spirit is God’s promise because the Spirit fills us and the earth with God’s knowledge and blessings.
CALLED TO HIS GLORY AND EXCELLENCE (2 TIMOTHY 1:8-10 & 2 PETER 1:3-4)
Humans build and boast about many accomplishments, but the Bible reveals God’s divine plan and work in His creation. The Bible proclaims the glory and excellence of Christ as the knowledge that blesses this earth. This is the good news God promises for all. This is especially gospel for those who separate themselves from the world’s corrupt and sinful ways by partaking in the divine nature through God’s great promises. Therefore, for this purpose God has saved us and called us to a holy calling by his grace and power given to us in Christ Jesus.
MANY CALLED BUT FEW CHOSEN (MATTHEW 9:9-13, 22:1-14 & ACTS 2:36-42)
The news media makes a big deal about the exclusive guest list at celebrity weddings. Who was invited, and who was left out. The guests at these fabulous feasts must feel greatly honored; and they would say: “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” And yet when God invited Israel, the priority guests to the wedding feast of His Son, the promised Messiah, they made excuses. Instead of becoming disciples of Jesus, many rejected him, preoccupying themselves with earthly affairs and worthless distractions. Thus the king judged his own people unworthy because they ignored the importance of his son’s wedding.
The king then extended the invitation to people everywhere and filled the wedding hall. But he cast out one of the guests who came into the wedding feast without wedding clothes. This guest had been called but he would not be chosen to remain because he also disregarded the importance of the occasion. Those the king judged unworthy either failed to honor his son by receiving the invitation or by dressing appropriately.
Jesus himself proclaimed the mercy of God when he gave his reasons for eating with tax collectors and sinners. He proclaimed that he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Therefore, God calls sinners to himself, but He calls sinners to repentance. Therefore, God expects anyone who accepts His invitation to honor the worth of His Son and the dignity of the occasion by repentance. Our calling is serious.
WORTHY OF THE CALL (1 THESSALONIANS 2:9-20, 1 PETER 1:13-25 & 2:1-12)
God calls us into His own kingdom and glory. This is priceless and immense. People show they value God’s promise first by accepting the call, and then by walking in a manner worthy of God’s call. The word of God is the seed that gave us new birth into this great eternal hope. The word of God is the same powerful truth by which we prepare our minds for action and purify our souls to be holy. Our calling is to be holy as God is holy. This is realistic and realizable for those who long for God’s word like pure spiritual milk, so they grow up into salvation. God’s word instructs us about our salvation, and what it means to be a chosen people; so that we may by conduct and words testify to the excellencies of God and His grace through Jesus Christ.
