” I want to bring you my postulate that most present-day Christians live sub-Christian lives. As a result, Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone.

Most Christians are not joyful persons because they are not holy persons, and they are not holy persons because they are not filled with the Holy Spirit, and they are not filled with the Holy Spirit because they are not separated persons.

The Spirit cannot fill whom He cannot separate, and whom He cannot fill, He cannot make Holy, and whom He cannot make holy, He cannot make happy.

My postulate further insists that the average modern Christian is not Christ-like. The proof of this is apparent in the disposition we find among the children of God. They have moral weakness and suffer frequent defeats. They have a dulled understanding and often live far below the standard of the Scriptures and thus outside of the will of God.

To be honest, let us admit that the application of the gospel is being pulled down to the standard of the most carnal, the cheapest saintling hanging on by the teeth anywhere in the kingdom of God.”

Mr.Tozer has been with the Lord for over 50 years! Imagine what he might say were he able to observe the churches of today! By trying to be “relevant” we are indeed compromising the Scriptural standard to be comfortable for “the most carnal” among us. We don’t call sin sin, we don’t speak against abortion or the homosexual life CHOICE, we glorify the numbers of lukewarm seekers any gifted presenter can gather as proof of the “success” of his church, and justify materialistic living as proof of God’s blessing. We have lost our influence in the public square and are being gradually marginalized out of existence following our European forefathers path.

I wonder what A.W. would have to say today?

Romans 8:28

Calling. God’s calling. What is it and what does it mean to be called according to His purpose? And how what does it mean specifically in our lives as 21st century believers?

Let’s start by a general discussion and definition of “calling.” Calling is often thought of as something that only happens when a Christian “surrenders” to the “call” to the professional ministry. Ie. to be a pastor, missionary, etc. This is a cultural misunderstanding of the term. While it does apply to the offices within the Church (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher – Eph 4:11) it is by no means limited to them. It may be that no other misunderstanding of God’s Truth has so handicapped the work of Christ and held back the Kingdom of God in the Earth. The fact is that EVERY believer is “called” to full time ministry in the Church. (Church = The Body of Christ)

In this sense “calling is destiny.” We each have a destiny in God.

Each person is a unique design, specifically created to do very specific things that are intended to contribute to the completion of the wonderful Plan that God has had in His mind since before He created the Earth. (Eph 2:10) Every one of His children who respond to His offer of forgiveness and reconciliation in Jesus Christ is born again, not only to inherit eternal life with Him in heaven, but also to do meaningful and specific things in His Kingdom building on Earth. The true “calling” of God is to “Come, follow Me.” To follow Him in the work that He has set aside for each of us to do, to “run the race that is set before us. (Heb.12:1) Notice that He picks the race. He picks it and calls us to follow Him in it.

Life’s highest honor and definition of success is to obey and to fulfill His purpose and “calling.”

Life’s greatest challenge is to find that purpose and live it out faithfully.

Our greatest enemy is the Deceiver whose sole purpose in the life of a believer, since he can’t steal our salvation, is to obscure, deflect, discourage, or if possible, prevent our understanding God’s call and block the fruit that would be borne within it. Our call and the fruitfulness potential within it is only realized in the center of God’s will for us. This is at least true in the sense of maximum potential. God will use us even when we are not centered in His will but the fruit produced in any other place will never be all that it could be. That’s why the Deceiver works so hard to deflect us. If he can’t steal our salvation he will try to steal our fruit. And he will steal just as much as we allow him to, even causing some to end their race barren and beaten.

The Deceiver offers his distractions in many forms. He knows our weaknesses in our flesh and he plays on them incessantly. His offerings always appear to be attractive but they all have in common that they deflect us from God’s call and lead us on a different path. He often uses money, either the hope of getting some or the fear of loss of some.

God doesn’t make junk! He doesn’t make or design any person without specific purpose for that life. Each and every piece (life) is designed to fit perfectly into His Eternal Plan.

He gives perfect gifts, talents, abilities, and provides perfect training and preparation for each one to follow His calling and to participate in His plan.

He will provide every thing each of us needs to fulfill His plan and calling in our lives. He must or He is not the Sovereign God. God will meet every need of one living within His call.

His calling is always accomplished within His order, never contrary to His Word, and always produces His fruit.

Some characteristics regarding God’s calling:

1)      Finding and fulfilling it will require faith. (Heb 11:6) Finishing in it will require endurance.(Heb. 10:36)

2)      It will require sacrifice and may fly in the face of worldly wisdom or custom. (Phil. 1:28,29 -  I Cor.1:26) It is very possible that following God in His calling will not be the most financially rewarding thing that we could do. It very well might mean that others will not appreciate us or what we do. We will be asked to walk by faith and not by sight. (Habakkuk 2:4)

3)      No matter how it may appear to the flesh or the world, it is in the center of God’s will and in fulfilling His call that the highest fulfillment in life, the greatest peace, joy, and purpose are found. (I Peter 1:1-7)

4)      Our commitment to God’s calling will always be tested by adversity. Often it will be challenged to the very point of breaking, the point where there is nothing left to hold on to except the knowledge that God has called and is able. (I Peter 5:8,9 – 4:19) There is a storeroom in Heaven where the forfeited rewards lost to those who have been deterred from pressing in to God’s calling rest, wasted to them forever, waiting to be passed to those who have faithfully persevered. (Matt 25:28,29)

5)      God desperately wants us to know His will and in it to fulfill His calling! He does not play games with us or try to confuse us. When confusion comes it is not from God. (I Cor.14:33 – Romans 12:1,2 – II Chron. 16:9)

6)      Once we know our calling we can’t not do it and have peace. (James 4:17) Sin destroys peace.

Are you “called?”

If you aren’t sure you are called, at least not yet, pray and fast if necessary but waste no more time. Do what you have to do to get on God’s agenda and stay there. Here, there, or anywhere. Just get there for your sake and for the Kingdom!

So, how’s it really working for us? Do you feel safer, more secure, and more happily prosperous than you did 5 years ago? 10 years ago? 20? 40? 50?  Are we experiencing a “kinder, gentler” culture?

How is our public education system working? 50 years ago we were number 1 in the world. No one would dare to claim that today. Most estimates rank us in the 20s somewhere. Are we getting better?

How about our economy? 50 years ago we were the richest lender-nation in the world. Today we are the world’s greatest debtor-nation, our debt growing every time congress is in session. (Republican or Democrat)

This is progress? How the mighty have fallen! And where will the bottom be? And how did this happen?

Here is my take. It all started in the Garden of Eden and accelerated greatly when in 1960-61 the Supreme Court took God out of our public  schools. This opened the door to resisting ultimate authority and the rebellion against all authority of the 60s, including the sexual revolution fueled by the pill and resulting in the objectification of women. Sexual liberation brought none of the hoped for benefits to women and actually deprived them of the respect of men and severely damaged the integrity of the family unit. Men were freed from the responsibility of parenting children they fathered when aborting (murdering) unwanted children was legalized and amazingly recognized as a constitutional right by the Supreme Court. A society that accepts the killing of babies is not a “good society.” God was not considered to be a part of the decision to grant the right of a woman to murder her unborn baby either legally or morally.

Through the 60s and 70s all measures of societal health trended down leading to the greed and immoral public behaviors of leaders in government, business, and the church of the 80s and 90s which expands and continues to this day. Obscene rappers and immoral entertainers have become our “heroes” and the definers of acceptable behavior. Unwed and homosexual procreation are accepted and our vice-president just proclaimed that homosexual marriage will soon become the law of the land. (Elton John’s having a baby!)

We have lost shame. We have lost extrinsic standard. We are losing hope for a better tomorrow.

This is all the inevitable result of ignoring the truth of a statement made by Fyodor Dostoevsky when he said “Without God anything is permissible, crime is inevitable.” Our Founders knew this to be true.

John Adams said: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

George Washington echoed: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable parts.”

John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence is quoted: “Corruption of morals make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten material together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual.”

Has crime increased or decreased? How many prisoners do we have locked up as a percentage of our population today compared to 50 years ago? What is your chance of being a victim of violent crime today versus 50 years ago?

I could go on but it would be purposeless. The obvious fact is are that, when any honest person looks at the last 50 years they will see serious deterioration in our national moral standard which has led to the devastation of every measure of societal health.

Wonder how we have so lost our moral compass? If you want a clue go to http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-2010 and get a sense of what happened to the church in 2010 and possibly http://buckjacobs.com/think-about-this-two-huge-flaws for a short discussion of the two critical flaws that have contributed mightily to our current situation.

There is only one possible recourse to reverse our slide from a culture of hope to a culture of ever increasing despair – repent and turn to God. And if we who claim to follow Jesus won’t or don’t lead our culture to a better place – who will? (II Chronicles 7:14)

“What one generation tolerates, the next embraces.”

“What we do in moderation our children will do in excess.”

“ Our tolerance and silence has given silent permission for morality and common sense to be abdicated!”

“Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority of elitist snobs, and rabidly promoted by a corrupted and unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t–d by the clean end.”

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”– Gerald R. Ford

“Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist’.”

“Some things are so foolish that only intellectuals will believe them.”

Facts are not a problem for the intellectual elite, they simply ignore them and ask for more money to apply to problems that their half-baked ideology has failed to solve. They refuse all responsibility for the failure of their ideas and simply get louder and nastier  in shouting at common sense. I.e. our educational system that has been in their hands for over 50 years has “progressed” from the finest in the world to off the list of the finest! Way to go smart guys!

Just a few simple words to start your week!

We get on the track when we join the Master’s team and He assigns us the Trainer that will be with us through the race. From the moment we step on the track we are off and running! Our Trainer runs as one with us. He recognizes the snares and entanglements that will trip us or slow us down and coaches us on which tactic we need to avoid them. He knows the length of the race and how we need to run to have our personal best time. He knows the prize that waits for us and is totally committed to our winning it.  He uses 6 basic training techniques, each designed to increase our strength and endurance as we stride, stride, stride, pant, stride… Running…Running our race…

The first building block or tactic is to Develop and fight to hold the Eternal Perspective of Life. Confusion about our ultimate purpose as children of God , as eternal beings living on Earth only temporarily as Ambassadors for Christ,  with the temporal values and perspectives of our worldly culture will always cause us to stumble. If we don’t get this clear, and keep it clear, we will be distracted and confused and will veer off the track. We are each unique and eternal beings sent here to do eternally important things…

“We are not physical beings who have occasional spiritual experiences, we are spirit beings who are having a temporary physical experience.” (T. DeChardin)

We can never hear too often that this world is not our home, it’s values are not our values. Don’t be deceived! There is no fellowship between light and darkness, and no compromise between the eternal perspective of life and the worldly or fleshly perspective of life is insignificant. The fight to hold the eternal perspective is not a once-won battle, it is a continuing war. The weapons of our warfare, the tactics and tools that we need to succeed, are found in our effort to…..

Develop and fight to build intimacy with Jesus. We need constant reinforcement and renewal as we encounter the snares and entanglements of the world, the flesh, and the devil as we run. The wellspring of our strength to run and win is our relationship with Jesus. Nothing is more important! Not our ministry, not our relationships, not the things we do at church, not the time we spend with family, and certainly NOT the things we do at work! Spending the time we need to build intimacy with Him is the most important thing that we do. There is no hour in the day that is more important than the time that we spend with Him. And the primary purpose of the time that we spend with Him is to learn to have Him present in our thoughts every moment of every day! Not for just one hour, but every minute of every hour! If Jesus is first in our lives why not give Him the first hour of every day? Is He really first? Prove it. Live it!

Listen! There is NO easy way to run a long race. Races are hard! NO runner succeeds in running a long race without difficult and arduous training! We can’t even run a race, let alone run it well, without investing sweat blood and tears! Yes, everything else on our plates scream for our attention! Of course there are pressures that come against us! It has been so forever and every one of those who have run before us and finished their race successfully has had to fight just as hard. We have not, nor will we ever, develop through our modern technology or knowledge, an easy way to run the race of life in Christ! Never! We must constantly work to… (To be cont’d Tactic 3 &4)

As leaders who are called and appointed by God we are eternally and constantly responsible and accountable for for promoting His agenda in the context of the environment in which He places us. (More on this at a later time.)

I am a constant and voracious reader, have been for many, many years. Over the last 35 years my primary focus in addition to Scriptures has been predominately on leadership, spiritual leadership, Christian leadership .  The book that I want to suggest today was first published in 2001 and I don’t believe that it has ever really been appreciated for the quality and scope of its content. As I scan the landscape of all that I have learned and experienced in working with Christian leaders of leaders for 35 years this book truly stands out as way best! It is Spiritual Leadership by Henry and Richard Blackaby, published by Broadman & Holman. I have no idea why this book didn’t gain more attention and traction than it did, perhaps 9/11 smothered it or perhaps it is too convicting for those seeking to promote private agendas and personal success, but in my opinion it is the best so far. I strongly recommend it especially for young leaders who truly want to make a lasting difference.

I am committing to reread Spiritual Leadership and would love to have you join me and share your thoughts. There has never been a time when true Christian leadership is needed more or in shorter supply!