Called By Christ To Be What You Alone Can Be

Brother Tim, as I continue this week's letter to you—and anyone else for that matter, both pastors and laity—I want to bring up something I said somewhere in the middle of yesterday's letter: 

In the next part of this letter I'll have more to say about what to pray for . . . 

And that brings me to some scattered thoughts for today, particularly about how I feel that we who are called to serve the church as pastors DO NOT know what to pray for. By that I mean to say that we are out of touch with much of what is going on around us, in our culture, and are NOT helping our people to confront it. Maybe that's because we afraid of the really hard questions before us—or we don't even know how to ask them. 

Let me explain by throwing out some things Os Guinness said 15 years ago about "Calling, Postmodernism, and Chastened Liberals."  

When I came to Christ in the early sixties, the central search for me—second only to the joy of knowing Christ—concerned my sense of sorrow at how marginal and pathetic much faith is in the modern world. Part of my response to that has been to look back at times in the past when faith has been dynamic and very powerful, and to examine the truths that made it so. . . 

Most of the secular alternatives to the gospel are in total disarray. The only dominant ones are negative, and as such they won't survive because they aren't satisfying.

MHR: What do you mean by the "dominant ones are negative"? 

OG: I'm referring to postmodernism. And humanism in any sixties sense, in which hardly anyone believes anymore. There are hardly any optimistic, post-Christian answers around. So we have one of the greatest apologetic opportunites we've had for five hundred years.

And yet most churches have lost their hold on apologetics. Many Christians don't even know what the term means. Those who do know what it means usually quarantine it very carefully in the seminaries on the east or west coasts. It never actually gets out to the streets to reach real people. As a result, we're missing one of the major moments of our time.

Guinness goes on to say some very important things about the Christian's calling, things that you too need to hear Tim, as you ponder your own calling. And, may I add, things that you need to teach to your people about their callings. Listen to this and then take a careful look at what he wrote. In this quote he's telling us to look beyond the empty new age ideas floating around.

OG: I think there should be an additional position—one classified as "called to be." We are not only created to be something—indeed, we are given some things at birth—but we are called to be something as well. 

It's fascinating to see this borne out in the scriptures. People who met the Lord face to face almost invariably fell flat on their faces (with a few exceptions, such as Joshua, who was too big for his boots and thus was told to take off his shoes). In most instances, such people are like Daniel and Ezekiel, who fell absolutely prostrate.

The Lord's words to them are almost always the same: "Stand up." In other words, calling not only singles us out—so that it's our name being called, and not someone else's—but it also stands us up. We arise to be what Christ alone knows us to be.

Tim, I pray that you will indeed struggle in prayer to be the man called to be, to "stand up" to be what Christ alone knows you to be. He will surely bless you.