Monday, December 8, 2014

How To Understand Whether I Have Full-Time Calling Or Not?







Why Has God Given Me A Ph.D? What For It Is?
 
Question : Dear Brother in Christ, I am immensely happy to start my spiritual communication with you. First, let me introduce who I am?. Brother, I was born and brought up in a Christian family. Recently, I have finished my Ph.D dept of English from Kakatiya University, Warangal, Andra Pradesh. I am crazy of Education. On 2008 Aug 16 I was buried from my old life and took Baptism for following Christ. The thing is 2012 on wards, I am not satisfied in my profession. Different people, different attitudes, hypocrisy, double-standard etc..... After Baptism, I have been sent to different Churches to preach the word of God through Hebron fellowship. My baptism promise is John. 16.33...Most important thing I tell you is that I am not unable to maintain good fellowship with Our God Lord Jesus Christ..daily I feel empty in my heart. There are the times I feel that I have been filled with the Spirit. Recently, I visited Singapore. There to a Bible Professor I shared my burdens saying, "I am fed up with my Job, because what appreciation will I receive from God after my death? Definitely I feel God questions me! Where is the harvest or where is your work?.. Here, my inability is how to understand whether I have full - time calling or not?.. What should I do??????. I am blessed with two daughters. My age is 35 years. Why has God given me a Ph.D? What for it is? I wait for your reply. Dr. W. Godwin Peter.

Answer : Greetings to you dear Brother in Jesus mighty name! I am so excited as much as you to communicate to you by the grace of God. You have been graced by God and chosen to be brought up in the way of truth in a Christian godly family, and that to me is one of the greatest privilege any one can get as a bonus from God as I know what I am saying because I am one blessed like that (2 Tim 1:5). We cannot stay with the laurels that our parents have given us as a great start in our spiritual life of faith by imparting invaluable anointing by inheritance, but we have to build on that personally and bring great glory to God according to His desire for us (1 Cor 15:10-11). Regarding education, it is a desire that God's puts in us and makes us fulfill it for His Glory (Jer 1:4-10). Whether we realize it or not, all our past experience and education have been know to God and He has planned to use that for the extension of His Kingdom and bring glory to Him through our lives (Php 3:5-6; Acts 22:25-29; 26:3-11). Even when we have chosen something ignorantly and do something against God's will, God can use that to bring us to repentance towards Him and thus help us walk in His perfect will for our lives (1 Tim 1:12-16). Our mistakes can also be used by God to bless others who are struggling like us to become what we have become by the grace of God. God is never surprised by our lives because He has foreseen us before-time, even before we began to fulfill all His will for our lives (Psa 139:16; Acts 13:36; 15:18). God is the one who decided where we should be born at what time we should be born and through whom we should be born and also in what nation we should be born to make a difference in this world of darkness with His light (Acts 17:26-28; Matt 5:14). So I am glad that God has put so much of good things in you to make a difference in our generation for Him (1 Pet 4:10; Rom 12:3, 6-8).

Also glad that you obeyed the command of our Lord Jesus to publicly confess before men of your faith through Baptism where your have acknowledged before God, men and angels that your old life has been buried with Christ Jesus and a New Life has been given to you by God to make a difference in your life and through you in others life (Matt 28:18-20; 10:32; 12:8; Rom 6:3-6). Every spiritual person who seeks for something more from God everyday will never become satisfied in life until they reach even greater heights with God every new day and see the power of God's resurrection act mightily in every area of their lives (Php 3:7-11). If ever you feel empty about anything in life as a Christian, take my word for sure that God wants you to seek Him more and not be satisfied in mediocre life of the world that tries to pull you and conform you to its fold to make you useless spiritually towards God.

Different people, different attitudes, hypocrisy, double-standard etc.....are things of darkness in which God has put you as a light to shine upon it and make a difference. We are not here to curse the darkness but rather light a candle in the midst of it. Jesus Himself has prayed to our Father God saying, "I have put these precious people in the world so that they can show Me through them....but they do not belong to the world...I have given them your Word..Sanctify them by Your truth. Yout Word is truth." (John 17:11, 16-17, Paraphrased). So Jesus has equipped us with His Word upon which we should put more and more of our faith which will surely going make a great difference in our lives (2 Tim 3:16-17; Rom 10:17). As apostle Paul says, "5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry [in proportion to our faith], let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches [in proportion to his faith], in teaching; 8 he who exhorts [in proportion to his faith], in exhortation; he who gives [in proportion to his faith], with liberality; he who leads [in proportion to his faith], with diligence; he who shows mercy [in proportion to his faith], with cheerfulness." (Rom 12:5-8). God has already given you a faith to teach, exhort and minister to people through His Word, and like wise according to God's will you have been given opportunity to use that gift within the Body of Christ. According to the above verse we have read, if we keep using the gift that God has given to us in His will, we are on the right track to please God more and more by our faith (Heb 11:6). The baptism promise that God has given to you in John 16:33 to me conveys that you have a greater sphere of influence that God will give you in the future to touch the Church as well as the secular world to glorify Him in a mighty way. But John 16:33 also reveals that you need to keep yourself in the peace of God that passes your natural understanding to be cheerful, joyful and rejoicing in the Lord in the midst of trials of life that will come to you to fulfill that mighty future that God is having for your life (Php 4:4-7). Pray for everything that concerns you daily so that nothing but the peace of God should remain in you at the end of your prayer on that particular day.

See, to maintain good fellowship with the Lord, you need to accept your life difficulties as coming from the Lord and begin to pray to the Lord continually to overcome it all through His grace (1 Cor 10:13). No matter whether it is your work pressure, family burden, concern for the lost souls or concern for the Church, etc....it should be seen through receiving the grace of God that He gives to handle it without your natural effort (1 Cor 15:10). Also believe that God has forgiven all your past, present and future sins once and for all in Christ Jesus, and that you are secure in His arms for eternity (John 10:27-30). This will bring great pull for you towards the Lord in gratefulness and will want you to fellowship with Him more and more (Eph 4:32; Heb 9:14, 26-28; 10:12,14). Now see yourself as God sees you. God sees you as He sees Jesus who sits with Him at His right hand in power and authority over all His creations, and God loves you as much as He loves Jesus (Eph 1:18-23; 2:6; John 17:23, 26). Now allow nothing in your life to be hidden from our Lord Jesus who is our faithful High Priest who speaks on behalf of us before Father God when we always confess our failings and weaknesses, and in return get God's grace which will be given to us to overcome all temptation and trials in our lives (Heb 4:14-16). God sees you as glorious as He sees Jesus in whom you have been hidden by God as one in spirit (1 Cor 6:17). Knowing that we have the glory of Jesus within us to show to the outside world (Col 1:27), God wants you to throw out the old way of thinking carnally to think spiritually the thoughts God will be giving you from heaven to your spirit-man and thus reveal to the world around you the greatness of the glory of Christ working within you (Col 3:3-4).

As you grow spiritually higher and higher, God wants you not to trust your feelings like before but wants you to entirely depend on His promises whether you feel empty or full of the Spirit in your soul. The Man of God Padre Pio said, "The life of a Christian is nothing but a perpetual struggle against self; there is no flowering of the soul to the beauty of its perfection except at the price of pain." What is this price of pain except carrying our cross daily by denying our self life which is based on our feelings of good and bad, likes and dislikes and finally judgment of ugly and beautiful. Then we should then go on to live by faith in the promises of God that will never fail to please God (Luke 9:23-24). If we lose our soul life by carrying our daily cross of living by denying our feelings and trusting God's promises, we will gain the Spirit life of heaven which will start to carry our lives consistently. It is like a sky diver who goes up lifted by a plane from which he jumps by faith and starts to fly by the direction of the wind flow. He will be carried by the wind from then on. And once parachute opens, the jumper can control the direction and speed. This goes on and on in a sky divers life which can be likened to a Christians life where the Spirit of God carries us to a peak and from there expects us to travel by faith according to the direction of the flow of the wind. Once we have the opened up the parachute of faith going on, we can control the direction and speed of our spiritual life which we exhibit to others. Thus I believe that you are on the right track again in this regard, keep going forward in faith and your will never be disappointed in life.

Another important thing that I want to convey is, there is no full time work and part time work we do for God, whatever we do, we do for the Glory of God (1 Cor 10:31; Col 3:17, 23). Even in your work as a dean and a Professor in the secular college, you should work as though you are working for the Lord. I believe you should do that because God has put you in that place to shine the Light of Jesus to young people whom you mentor. I do agree that certain disciples Jesus told to leave their profession and come follow Him to spread the gospel and fish for men (Matt 4:19). But those people within the fivefold ministry are few who have been put to equip, edify and build the Church in full time (Eph 4:11-13). In fact the greatest apostle of all time who was called in to full time ministry was a radical who supported himself and his team doing a buisness (Acts 18:1-3; 20:33-35; Philippians 4:14-16), and then used his other time to spread the gospel to all the nations around the world to be an example for the Church to come in the succeeding generations (1 Cor 4:12; Acts 20:34). Those who preach the gospel have the right to partake to live off the offering provided by the people for the Church, that is the way Peter and other apostles in the early Christian Church who devoted themselves entirely to their religious ministry lived off the money donated by Church members for the building of the Church through their lives (Acts 4:34-37). But a radical like Paul frequently performed outside work, not desiring to be a financial burden to the young Churches he founded (2 Thess 3:8). Also Paul wanted to build his credibility among non-Christians, thus giving him the chance to win over more of them (1 Corinthians 9:12). But later as the ministry of apostle Paul began to flourish greatly, people wanted to willingly support him for the sake of them getting blessed by God eternally (Php 4:10, 14-20), he accepted their offering and prayed to God to bless them supernaturally and provide for them so that they can be more of a blessing to others (Matt 10:10; Rom 1:8-13; 10:14-15; 15:15:24, 25-27, 29, 32; 16:1-2; 1 Cor 9:6-18; 16:1-4, 19; 2 Cor 9:1-15; Gal 6:6-10; Php 4:10-20; Col 4:2-4, 7, 12-13, 18; 1 Tim 4:16-18; 6:17-19; 2 Timothy 4:13; Titus 3:12-14; Philemon 18-19, 22). In the Thessalonian Church pioneering ministry time, Paul self-supported himself and his team to do the ministry of the gospel without receiving anything from the Church (1 Thess 2:5-11; 2 Thess 3:7-9). In fact when they were ministering in Thessalonica, they were partly supported financially by the Philippian Church (Php 4:16-17). In the other case, though Ephesian churches were spiritually mature churches, still they were continuing to have the embryonic house churches due to many constraints where the elders were gives responsibilities to lead it (Acts 20:20), so financially they were strained due to its decentralized structure. So here Paul the apostle supported himself and his team members by working overtime and doing ministry along with it (Acts 20:33-35). More recently, William Carey (1761-1831), considered to be the father of modern evangelical Christian missions, was a tentmaker in India, working as a factory owner and university professor while fulfilling his mission duties. His example has led thousands of Christian missionaries to support themselves while ministering overseas. I believe you are working more than full time in ministry by doing overtime work for Jesus. That is wonderful. Still you can follow the pattern of ministry done by apostle Paul by continuing to minister to the people of God through self-supporting missionary work until God starts to put in the heart of the people whom you have ministered, pioneered and who have been greatly blessed through your ministry to support you for their blessing without you ever appealing for funds specifically or speaking for it. That is the same with an organization also, if they come forward to support you in your missionary work seeing the fruit of your ministry, then it is the will of God for you to continue in full time ministering to people because of lack of time to do any other work (Acts 6:3-4).

From what I have written to you in details, I believe this would have cleared all your questions regarding how you should proceed in your life fulfilling the calling of God over your life and family. God will never give you anything that He does not want you to use and excel in your life through it. God is seeing how you are supporting yourself wonderfully and are also doing the work of God in your life and ministry, He is indeed appreciating you in various aspects of your life and family tangibly. But the enemy of your soul is putting thoughts of condemnation to weaken your life when there is actually no condemnation for anything in a believers life because of what Jesus has done for us all individually (Rom 8:1, 9). You are already complete in Christ Jesus our Lord (Col 2:9-10), and you need to realize that you have been perfected forever in your spirit-man to stand before God joyfully anytime to love Him and follow Him without any guilt for not doing anything that you are supposed to do (Heb 10:14). The only thing that must motivate you to live you life for Jesus and do His ministry is because of His love for you that controls you inside out and outside in for the Glory of God (2 Cor 5:13-21). God will never ask you critically anything that will not edify your mind to work for Him with joy, peace and righteousness which is the actual kingdom manifestation of His tangible Presence (Rom 14:17). We just don't work for Jesus just as servants but actually as friendly believers and followers of Jesus foot steps, we work with Him and through Him to reach out to lost souls (Mark 16:20; John 15:5, 7; Heb 13:21; Col 3:17). In other words, the work you do for Jesus is actually a work that He does through you and apart from Him no matter how zealous you are, you can do nothing of eternal value without Him working through you. So co-operate with Jesus more and more by letting Him work through you by dying to your self life through various moments of frustrations of life that the Lord sends to you to sharpen your spiritual life to become useful and a blessing to many around you in the coming days (Heb 12:3-11).

Much Blessings....




Share:


Share Button

Previous Posts



No comments:

© 2008-2019 Abraham Israel. Powered by Blogger.
 

About

apostolicrevelation.blogspot.com is one of the world's fast growing popular Bible study websites, attracting thousands of visitors daily from all around the world. We follow a unique revelatory apostolic seer writing from the Scripture with Rapture taking place any time after Mid-Point but before Great Tribulation begins through Antichrist, we use dispensational interpretation of Scripture and believe the Bible teaches salvation by grace through faith alone, and the eternal security of believers. We will focus mainly on apostolic teaching that will edify, equip and empower the saints to reach their full potential in Christ Jesus. Our goal is the edification, evangelism and empowerment of the last day Church that the Lord Jesus Christ is raising up before His triumphant return!
 
 

Have Any Questions? Ask A Apostolic Bible Teacher!

  ►Please Fill Your Email And Name For My Answers To Reach You — Abraham Israel◄  

Name

Email *

Message *

 
Thank you. God Bless You!

Blog Archive

Total Pageviews

d