I’ve been thinking a lot about my “call” the last six months. Just to recap: I went from thinking I wanted to be a youth pastor at a church in Portland, attending Western Seminary in Portland and never ever EVER returning to Texas unless it was to Austin, TX. Shortly thereafter, I got a kick in the pants from God. Repented. And started exploring where God was calling me. I ended up in Dallas, TX at Westminster Seminary (which I hadn’t visited until the day I crossed the Oklahoma-Texas border with all my bags packed). I’ve been thinking about how when God calls people they will do radical stuff for the kingdom. Just survey the OT and you’ll see radical acts of faith by ordinary people, and you’ll notice that those acts are usually initiated by God calling them to those acts.
I’m taking a class that’s asking me to read “Called to the Ministry” by Edmund P. Clowney. I’m only a couple of pages into it, but I wanted to share with you some quotes I’ve highlighted.
- “When the Lord calls he will be answered” and “it is clear that the answer must come from the Lord himself”.
- “There is no call to the ministry that is not first a call to Christ…Your calling to sonship is your calling in Christ.”
- “True identity can never come from relations with men, for every relation is a role to be played…There is but one relation that can give identity to man, the relation to his Creator and Savior.”
- “You learn to know yourself only as you learn to know Christ. Self-knowledge cannot be an end in itself. Paul never cries with Socrates, ‘Know thyself!’ Rather he says, ‘That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead’. (Phil 3:10,11). ‘For to me to live is Christ’ (Phil. 1:21) is the text of Paul’s life.”
