by Rev. Chas Stevenson
The call of the Christian can only be understood and fulfilled if we first travel backward in time through the history of the Christian. There was a time when the believer was not a believer - when the follower of Christ was following the world. And there was a certain pathway to righteousness that each person who is saved had to travel upon - each person's pathway being different.
The most beautiful thing that has ever happened to a Christian is that he was born again. Or it may be the day that he repented from years of rebellion. There is a pathway to God that is narrow and the gate is straight, and what a glorious thing to be on that path! We rejoice and are glad and are willing to glory in the abundant life given by Christ. But then we must think back to how we reached that narrow pathway. Once we see our progression to God, we realize that it was lined with many influential people whom God ordained to get us to Him. And here is where we begin to see the call of the Christian.
Within every Christian is the Spirit of God, who is earnestly desiring to seek out others to birth into relationship with God. The believer can never allow his mind to faint back into lethargy, only rejoicing that he, himself, has been saved and healed and renewed by the Spirit. How selfish it would be to forget his path to God, which was made possible only by other perfectly positioned believers who preached unto him the truth. He has now become one of them.
It is true. Most every believer, soon after his born again experience, has had a desire of the heart to reproduce his faith in someone else. He has wanted to share his new life and help others attain the righteousness of God by faith. That desire is real! It is from heaven. It is the nature of God. It came the day the Spirit of God moved into the heart of the person. It is the purpose of Jesus Christ. He came to seek and save that which was lost; and He is still seeking those that are lost. The Lord Jesus has a mission: to give God another tabernacle to dwell within - not a church building, but a temple made without hands. But the Lord Jesus is limited in his task, as He can only reach people through his saints. He is reliant upon our obedience. He is reliant upon our submission to the Spirit of love and compassion and our zeal to reproduce ourselves. We must not faint in our deeds of love. To the Christian who has lost his purpose on earth; to the Christian who has not felt that zeal to help someone repent and believe in the Lord, I ask you to bow before Jesus and repent; and then get up and receive His primary purpose for you on earth; and then go do it by faith. Practice thinking eternally. Rearrange the cares and pleasures of this life to a lower priority than this awesome responsibility of making converts and disciples of just one more person. Our labor of love is all that matters; eternity begins soon, and it will be clear to all of us then. But now, we have the chance to see the future and attain unto spiritual things. We'll be glad we did.
If you have fear of this task, or if you have previously failed and found it frightening, fear thou not! We all have had that hindering fear, but it is not altogether real! The power to tell the gospel is more real, but it comes only after your step of faith. There are some things to learn; there are some things to avoid; there is training and practice involved in preaching the kingdom. The early disciples were trained personally by Jesus. Now, we can be personally trained by the Holy Spirit. And we can be trained by the ministers of God. Seek after masteries; seek to understand; seek to know how to do the works of Christ. Complacency will bring guilt. Not fulfilling the call of God to reconcile the world will cause the Christian's heart to condemn him. Not sharing Christ will cause the life of Christ to remain bottled up within so that he is never renewed day by day since there is nothing to renew. The Christian must not become like the Dead Sea, which receives from the Sea of Galilee by the river Jordan, but then has no tributaries out of it, failing to flow outward. Stagnant water is not healthy water. Stagnant life loses its own life. Revive yourself! Revive the world! Let your light so shine! Confess Christ to all, that He will confess you to God!
And don't forget the power! To fully preach the gospel, Jesus also used signs and wonders and healings. He went everywhere teaching, preaching, and healing. So should we. We must! He has given power and demonstration as part of the witness process. His resurrection was the culmination of power on the earth - the dominance of Christ over all evil. And we now live in His resurrection - we are risen with Christ. He has given us His Name! We can heal sick people, and we must not be afraid. It is real. The world must see a living Christ. The days of preaching without power are over. We are not here to devise a cunning sermon with wisdom of words and eloquent speech. Its effectiveness is temporary. It touches only the minds of men. Converts need to see power; they need to see God present Himself into the earth with tangible power. God ordained that. He has always been liberal with His wonders among men. And so it is today. In these last days, the Christian who will determine to preach and to heal the sick, for the purpose of fulfilling the commission of God and helping people, will see the Lord's mighty favor and will be granted the outstretched hand of God to perform miracles. So climb into God's call for the Christian. Climb out of the world's system. Climb out of contemporary Christianity and into raw Bible power - into the works of Christ!
