The Spirit's Call

"For ... we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office" (Romans 12:4)

While there is only one way to become a preacher, unfortunately there are many doors into the pulpit. One is to be endowed with what is sometimes called a "good pulpit presence." Many a tall Absalom whose commanding presence and sonorous voice mark him as a natural leader of men is attempting to speak for God when he has not been sent by God. His call is from the people instead of from the Spirit and the results cannot but be disastrous.

Others have become ministers from a genuine but altogether human love for mankind. These have a strong sense of social obligation which they feel they can best discharge by entering the ministry.

Of all wrong reasons for becoming a preacher this would seem to be the most laudatory, but it is nevertheless not a spiritually valid reason, for it overlooks the sovereign right of the Holy Spirit to call whom He will.

The church that is man-managed instead of God-governed is doomed to failure. A ministry that is college-trained but not Spirit-filled works no miracles. Things will get no better until we get back to the realized presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Called to Be A Voice

"Then flew one of the serphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand ... and he laid it upon my mouth" (Isaiah 6:6-7)

Most surely the Church has a service of compassion to render to the world, but her motives are not humanitarian. They are higher than this by as much as the new creation is higher than the old. It is inherent in the Christian spirit that the followers of Christ should wish to minister to the bodies as well as the souls of men. But the call to give God's prophetic message to the world is something apart.

The call to witness and serve comes to every Christian; the call to be a  Voice to mankind comes only to the man who has the Spirit's gift and special enabling. We need not fewer men to show mercy, but we need more men who can hear the words of God and translate them into human speech.

It is not enough that we are willing and eager to work for God, but the work itself must be of God. This is one of the deepest deaths that Christians are often called to die. Indeed, our work is unacceptable to God and useless to ourselves and others until it first have been bathed in the blood of Calvary and touched with the sign of crucifixion. It must cease to be OUR work and thus BECOME HIS and His alone.

~A. W. Tozer~