Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2839qTTZO6k&t=1s
What's
Your Calling as a Christian?
Well, praise Jesus
today everyone. I wanted to talk about this topic about our calling as
disciples of Jesus, as Christians, and what it means to be called and what
exactly we are called to. Now most of us, we know the Great Commission that
Jesus spoke of in Matthew chapter 28. “Go into all the world, preach the gospel
to all creation, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, and teach them to obey everything that I've commanded you. And behold,
I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” So we know we're supposed to
baptize people in Jesus' name. We're supposed to live by example. But how does
all of this play out in real life? How does it all play out in your life and in
my life?
Now there's a
couple different deceptions on opposite ends of this spectrum. One is the side
of condemnation, that you always feel condemned because the world is telling
you that you need to serve Jesus a certain way, and you're not doing that, so
you feel condemned. Or on the opposite side of that spectrum, you could be on
the side where you feel very justified because you're doing so many things for
God. You feel like you've found your niche in Christianity. Maybe you're a
preacher, maybe you're a pastor, maybe you lead mission trips. Whatever the
case is, you feel very justified that your ministry is valid before God and
that you're taking people to heaven. Most of these are dangerous places to be
because if you feel condemned by the devil, you will always feel unworthy to
follow God, you'll be insecure in your walk with the Lord, you won't be able to
walk with Jesus and glorify Him with all of your ability because you'll always
be listening to Satan and getting beat down by the devil. But if you have too
much confidence, the kind of confidence that is not in the Lord but in your own
flesh, then you think that you're doing so much for God and that you're better
than other people because you have such a successful ministry, and then you're
full of pride.
Now I've been on
both sides of the spectrum. I've heard the accusations from Satan. I've seen it
in my life and in others. And also on the side that you think that you're the
best and that your ministry is really used by God. Back when I was a pastor in
church, I really thought I was doing God a big favor, and I would go home after
I preached on Sunday or to my youth group, and I really thought that I had just
really done God a big favor and that if anyone was led into heaven, it would be
me because I had just preached the gospel, I was going to Bible college, and I
was doing all these good things for God, so I felt very entitled to go to
heaven. And I would just lay down on my bed at night and say to myself, I've
done a lot of good things for you God, and I would just feel like I was going
heaven. But both of these are dangerous places to be because either of them can
make us fall off of the path of the righteous.
So I want to talk
about first the deception, hold on a second here, of feeling condemned. Now a
lot of us are following Jesus the way He asks, but the devil gets in with
condemnation because we look around and we see how other people are witnessing
or how other people are living their lives for the Lord. But not all of us are
called to be street preachers, not all of us are called to be YouTube
evangelists, not all of us are called to be missionaries. Some of you will just
be called to be stay-at-home moms. Some of you will just be called to a certain
workforce and to be a light to those people at your workplace. So all of us are
called to different places in the body of Christ, and we have to accept what
Jesus gives us with faith. Now an example of this would be if Jesus has called
you to have children and to raise those children, but you feel very condemned
that you're not out on a mission trip, you're not on the street evangelizing,
the devil's telling you that you're not as strong or courageous as other people
because you're just staying at home with your kids. So you start to become
convinced that you're not doing anything for God. These kinds of condemnations
come all the time, especially to people who are truly believers in Jesus. The
devil tells them you're not doing enough, you're lazy, it's not enough just to
be raising your children for the Lord, it's not enough to just be a grandma,
you're basically just a lukewarm lazy Christian because you're not out there on
the streets or preaching on YouTube or going on mission trips, you're just
reading your own grandchild Jesus stories and that's not enough, it's
insufficient. So if you listen to those kinds of accusations from the devil,
you'll get very beaten up, you'll get worn down, you'll get discouraged in your
faith, and you'll just be accused by the devil and you won't be having the joy
of the Lord in you to speak to your grandchildren or your children anymore,
you'll just be beaten down.
So I want to
encourage you, if you are the Christian who has received the Holy Spirit, who
has received your calling, but the devil continues to accuse you saying you're
not doing enough, you need to be like these other Christians who are street
preaching, or you need to be doing missions like this other person, don't
listen to the devil. If the Lord has called you to not say a word, but to stay
in your room and just pray, then you ought to just be a prayer warrior and pray
for your family. If that is your calling, then you need to do exactly what
Jesus calls you to do without wishing to be a different part of the body of
Christ. Remember how even the Apostle Paul spoke about that, the arm can't be a
leg, the leg can't be an eye, the eye can't be an ear, but all of us together
work as the body of Christ is under the Lord. And only when we're functioning
as we should are then we operating in love, how Jesus wants us to. So I want to
encourage you that if you're getting accusations from the devil about this,
rebuke the devil in Jesus' name and continue to do the things that Jesus has
called you to do. For many of us, it will just be simply to stay at home and
raise our children, be apart from the world, be apart from dead religion, don't
be trying to start a Bible study in your house, don't be letting outsiders in
to pollute your kids. Keep your kids and yourself unstained from the world, be
a protector of your children, because after all, that is the most important
thing you can do as a mom or a dad or a grandma or a grandpa, would be to raise
your own family for the Lord. So it's irrelevant if you're doing something that
seems good in the eyes of the world with all these people out in public, if
your own grandchildren or your own children are missing the gospel and they're
off with their cell phones looking at porn and you think you're doing good
because you're evangelizing other people. So that's a big snare, guys. Make
sure that you don't listen to the accusations of Satan, but you follow the
calling Jesus has called you to with your own individual family, even if it
doesn't seem like you're doing something big. That is a big accusation of the
devil. You're not doing anything big like these other people. If you go on
YouTube or if you go on the internet, it looks like all these other Christians
have really epic ministries, they're baptizing others, they're speaking in
tongues, they're healing, they have healing ministries and reconciliation
ministries, and man, you're just staying at home doing almost nothing except
watching kids. How boring. But the true gospel is not about sensation, it's not
about looking good in the eyes of men, but it is about doing the will of our
Father in heaven.
So whatever your
calling is, fulfill that calling and be secure with Jesus in the calling that
He has given you. Don't try to be like any other Christian or any other person
in the whole wide world. Be you that Jesus has created you to be and give God
glory in that.
So on the other side of this spectrum, guys,
is the side that we feel justified in having some kind of ministry that appears
good before men. Too many Christians fall into this boat. They have a lot of
charisma, they are good speakers, they're elegant with their speech, they have
big ministries, whether it is online or in a church or overseas, they get
partnerships with other people, and it looks to the world that they have a very
valid ministry. They have a lot of things published, books published, videos
published, literature published, they're selling all sorts of things, and to
anyone who sees them, it sure looks like they're really doing God a big favor. But
a lot of ministries are not valid before God. We really have to make sure that
God validates our ministry and that we're not just doing what we think is God's
work our own way. Too many years of my life I served God the way I thought
best. And especially when I was younger, I thought that following God was all
about going to church and having ministry in a church. I told myself that I
would never go anywhere without being in church. Whether I was in Southern
California or I moved out of state or overseas, I would always get plugged into
a church and do ministry there.
But as time
progressed forward and I was learning the Lord's voice, I was starting to learn
the hypocrisy in the American church and the church at large around the world,
and just how much God does not validate ministries that were not started by His
Holy Spirit. And there are many pastors, many organizations that are biblical,
they appear to be good on the outside, a lot of people donate to them, but
they're serving God their own way. And because of this, they're not bearing
good fruit and God is going to cut them off in the end and they will be thrown
into the fire. I had a ministry like that for many years and it was fruitless
before God. And at the end of the time that I was in that ministry, the Lord
asked me, how many people have you made Christians or how many people have
become Christians because of your ministry? And I cannot name God one soul who
had truly repented as fruit that I had been able to establish. No one had come
to Jesus because of my spiritual fruit. No one was following the Lord and that
is because my spiritual fruit was bad. I was leading people in the way of
idolatry, in the way of false worship, in the way of music of the world.
And when I realized this, I repented. I left
the American church. I left the church at large never to go back and to serve
Jesus the way He wanted me to serve Him, not the way I wanted to serve Him. For
me, that calling was partially going on the internet and spreading Jesus on
Facebook and on YouTube. That really opened up a lot of doors for me because in
my personal life, the people personally around me were not listening. And any
time that I would try to share Jesus, they would talk over me. I couldn't get a
conversation out, whether it was over the phone or in person without getting
talked over and the devil just snatching the message out and away from the ears
of those that I was trying to speak to. So YouTube and Facebook and being able
to upload an entire message without being interrupted was truly a blessing
because then the message could go out to everyone in my church, whether their
parents or their grandparents liked it or not, and no one could interrupt me.
And that was for the glory of God. Now, not everyone is called to go on
YouTube.
Not everyone is
called to preach on the internet, but everyone is called to live a life for
Jesus if they are a disciple. And they're called to witness however they can,
whether that's to your own children, to your own wife or husband, to your
grandparents, to whoever you're around, you are called to be salt and light.
And if you're ashamed of Jesus and His gospel, then He is going to be ashamed
of you. That's what Jesus says. And what I found was the people in my personal
life, my friends, my family, the people in my church, all of them would talk
over me. None of them approved of Jesus and the truth and the truth of His gospel.
They wouldn't listen. So my calling was to go on YouTube and start preaching
Jesus there to anyone who would listen. And I started preaching Jesus at my
work workplace and anywhere that Jesus called me to go. And that was truly a
blessing. So as we seek the Lord and listen to Him, He guides us in our
calling, the thing that he's called us to do with ministering and witnessing to
our family and our friends and those in the outside world. It's like how Jesus
said, you know, it will be, I'm not sure exactly how it went, but in Jerusalem
and then Judea and then into the far parts of the world. And that's how the
gospel started in the beginning. Remember how the early apostles and the
apostle Paul were spreading the gospel to people in their own town, their own
family. And then when they got persecuted, they spread it to the surrounding
regions and then it spread to the entire world. And that is how we have to be.
However, the Lord has called us, whatever calling he's called us to, we need to
hearken to that calling as His child and then do His work.
Well, I see your
messages coming in, guys. I know that some of you are following Jesus with all
your heart, and then obviously some of you clearly aren't. Some of you are
following the devil. And that's been the same for years and years. That was the
same from the very beginning. People from the beginning of when people were
preaching the gospel, there was always people accusing the true saints, always
people causing trouble. So if there wasn't anyone trying to cause trouble and
speak evil of the apostle Paul and speak evil of me and of you, then we
probably would be part of the false gospel. But it's a blessing when people are
speaking evil of us, because that's more confirmation that we are with Jesus
Christ. It's a blessing to be slandered for His name, to take persecution for
Him, and to know that the devil is against us.
So don't be
ashamed wherever you are, whether it's with your family or in the workplace to
stand up and to talk about Jesus to be salt and light. Whenever God gives you
the opportunity. I have noticed there are some people that are full of demons
who want you to speak about Jesus just so they can mock you. And those are the
kinds of people that you want to ignore and immediately rebuke them in the name
of the Lord and walk a different direction. In my life, there's been times
where demon possessed people would literally follow me around and I had to
rebuke them in the name of Jesus until they left. Very similar to the Apostle
Paul, who had a demon possessed girl following him around saying this man
preaches the resurrection of the dead and preaches Jesus Christ or whatever
that demon possessed girl was saying. And then the Apostle Paul had to rebuke
that demon and cast it out. It will be the same way if we follow Jesus. People
will try to, they will try to smear the gospel. They'll always be looking for a
way to try to smear us to make us look like we're a lunatic or just lying or
out of our mind. But keep in mind, they did this to Jesus. They did this to all
the disciples, even family members and friends of people that follow Jesus will
turn on you if you really put your faith in Jesus Christ. So this is to be
expected. And if no one is opposing you, then maybe, you know, maybe we are on
the side of the devil if no one is speaking evil against us.
So I want to
encourage you to find that calling from Jesus, whatever it is. If he's called
you to go online, then be a testimony for Jesus online. If he's called you just
to be a testimony to people in your family and be a testimony to them. If you
are a grandma and you took in a grandchild because your children ended up in
prison or in jail or dead, then be a witness to your grandchild. Teach them
about Jesus Christ. Get some Jesus books and read the stories of Jesus to your
grandchildren so that they may have the truth of God in them and not all the
pollution that comes from the Internet and movies and all that garbage that is
out there.
So at this point
in time, I want to pray for those of you who are part of the body of Christ and
who want to know what the calling is, what Jesus is calling you to do. I want
to pray for you because each of us in the body of Christ are to bear good
fruit. Jesus wants us to always be producing fruit for Him so that we can
produce more fruit. In the parts of us that aren't producing fruit, He wants to
cut off and prune so that we can be more productive for God's kingdom. “So Lord
Jesus, I pray for those who want to be filled with your Holy Spirit, who want
to despise this world and despise what is evil, I pray for them that they can
be filled with your Holy Spirit and have direction in your name. I pray that we
will not listen to the words of lying lips, of lying men and women and false
prophets and people who want to make us unfruitful. But I pray that we can
truly find our calling in you to preach the gospel, to live holy, to shine as a
light to our family members and friends, to our children, to our grandparents
and whoever may be in our life. We pray that we can just be upright and pure
wherever we are and that we can just stand for you, always being the salt and
light that you call us to be, Lord. I pray for those who are wanting to be set
free from sin so they can be ambassadors for your kingdom. I pray that they can
be unshackled, that they will confess their sins and that they will truly
repent and be reconciled to you, Lord. In your name I pray. Amen.”
Well, you can overcome in Jesus' name. If you
pray in His name, if you set your heart on Jesus, He will give you the power
because Jesus is able to set us free from sins. He is able to put you on the
straight and narrow path. He is able to put in your heart His calling and to
give you everlasting life. He loves you, He loves our souls, but we have to
obey Him, love Him back and follow Him the way that He wants us to follow Him,
not the way that we think best, the way He thinks best. So keep praising Jesus,
go with Him with all your heart and don't listen to the lies and accusations of
Satan.
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