Luke 5:31-32 “ And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This episode is about how God is calling all of us. We shouldn't discount ourselves because we feel we aren't enough for God to use. It also has two powerful words or prophecy given at my prayer group. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God is Calling You
Luke 5:31-32 “ And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
The reason I like this scripture so much is because it reminds us that we don’t have to be perfect for God. It reminds us that God doesn’t expect us to have it all together, to know the right thing to do and to do it all the time. He came to walk this earth with us because we needed Him. He knows exactly who we are and he still calls us. This is truly amazing to me. Why is this so hard for us to understand? Why is it so hard for us to believe that God can love and accept us just as we are? Why is it that we feel like we are not good enough for God. We feel like we need to have it all together. We ask ourselves questions like, “Why would God help me, what have I ever done for Him” We question and we doubt. Why is this?
God is telling us right here in this passage that He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He knows we are sinners. There is no use trying to hide it from Him, He already knows. And yet he came to call us to Him anyway. Will we except this call? Will we step outside of our disbelief long enough to repent and accept the Lord’s forgiveness? God gave some really powerful words of prophecy yesterday during my prayer group and I would like to share two of them with you now. The first one I would like to share was, “My children, my children I call you not because you are great and wonderful and perfect I call you because you are little and weak and helpless. I call you because you just let me work in your life. That's why I love you. Always be near me, always trust in me, for I AM powerful and great and perfect and I don't ask you to be anything but my lover.”
God doesn’t love us despite our sins and weaknesses, he loves us because of them. Our weaknesses make us humble and God can do His best work through those that are humble. When we are struggling we turn to the Lord and we rely on Him. When everything is going great, we tend to rely on ourselves. That is until something goes wrong again and we go back to relying on the Lord. This verse above and the words the Lord said during prayer group are not the only times that God has told us he loves us in our weaknesses. Remember the conversation He had with Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” God has always worked through ordinary sinful people. I think we all know that God uses people to do His work here on Earth, however, sometimes we can ignore the call when we hear it because we think to ourselves, “God wouldn’t use me, I’m not holy enough, I am not smart enough, I am not liked enough…” Or whatever your version of not enough is. We all have some version of not enough and we let that stop us from answering God’s call. I saw a poem, or a list yesterday of a bunch of people that God used to do His work, and they were not perfect. They were all sinners, just as we are. Here is what I read. It is titled Do You Seriously Think God can’t use You?
Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering problem, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair and was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David had an affair and was a murderer, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow, Job went bankrupt, Peter denied Christ, the disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha worried about everything, the Samaritan woman was divorced, Zaccheus was too small, Paul was too religious, Timothy had an ulcer, Lazarus was dead. Maybe you see yourself in one of these people from the Bible and maybe you don’t. What is important to see is that God can use anyone. It is important to know that God loves us, just as we are and He will use us and our weaknesses to carry out His will and to help build His kingdom here and now.
Now that we have talked about how God uses each one of us even in our weaknesses and how He is calling all of us, I would like to share a call that He gave yesterday at our prayer group. The Lord said “I have placed a call upon your hearts today. I call you to deep prayer, not the many words you would think, but from your heart. A deep prayer call me, call me to turn the tides, call me to forgive, call me to have compassion. Make your prayer a daily call. Forgiveness is what I want, but no one listens. I ask you to be my prayer warriors this day. Daily come before me without words. Just listen and I will direct your path. Will you take this call? Just come.” The Lord is calling each and every one of us into deep prayer. Will we accept His call? He is also calling us to forgiveness, will we accept that call? And lastly He is calling us to be with Him and listen for Him to direct our paths, we will accept that call?
I feel as though the call to prayer daily wouldn’t be that hard, I could find five minutes to sit with the Lord. Then I think about my day and I know I have five minutes, but do I give it to the Lord each day, probably not. I let myself get distracted and I forget. However, I do keep trying and that is what God wants, for us to keep trying, not for us to be perfect. The next call was to forgiveness, I know some of you are disqualifying yourself from this call already. You heard the word forgiveness and you told yourself you just can’t. He isn’t calling you to forgive because He knows what you went though and He couldn’t possibly want you to forgive. You are right, He does know what you went through and that is why He wants you to forgive. He knows that you will be so much happier when you do. He knows that until you do this thing that happened still has control over you. He knows all the graces it takes to forgive and He wants to give them to you. Don’t count yourself out. Take up this call. Tell God you will do your best to forgive, and then spend time in prayer each day and He will show you how.
The third thing He asked us to do is to listen quietly and let Him lead our steps. Can we do this? Can we pause for a few minutes each day and ask the Lord how we should proceed? Matthew Kelly talks about this in his book “Resisting Happiness.” He talks about how different his life was once he started his days off asking the Lord what he wanted him to do, or what the Lord thought about the various decisions in his life. Will you take up this call to give the Lord 5 minutes of silence a day to just listen and let Him direct your steps. Some of you just heard that question and immediately told yourself that I am not talking to you, or God is not talking to you because you know you can’t hear the Lord. You can give him 5 minutes, but you don’t think you will hear anything. Maybe you have tried before and you never hear anything. God is calling you to give Him that 5 minutes every day, even if you don’t hear anything. God is faithful and if we are faithfully showing up God is too. Even if you don’t hear anything, even if you don’t feel as though God is there with you, I assure you He is. He always shows up. If He is not talking to you maybe He is silently working within you. Maybe He is working on softening your heart so you can forgive, maybe He is mending your broken heart, maybe he is attending to your wounds. Whatever He is doing, I promise you, if you show up God will show up. He is there working within you.
So, do you think you can answer God’s call? Can you believe that God could be calling you, even in your imperfection? If you can’t believe it, can you step outside that disbelief long enough to give God a chance? He loves you just as you are. He is not asking anything from you other than for you to love Him. If you say yes to the Lord’s call, He will show you how to carry it out. Just keep saying yes to the Lord, even if you doubt. He will show you why He is wanting to use you. Your weakness might be the exact thing someone else needs. The Lord works in mysterious ways. We won’t always understand. God isn’t asking us to be strong or powerful, He is just calling us to say yes, and He will help us do the rest. Remember what God said in the word He gave to my prayer group, “Always be near me, always trust in me, for I AM powerful and great and perfect and I don't ask you to be anything but my lover.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we want to answer your call, please give us the courage to do so. Please help us to believe that you would use each one of us, even though we are flawed. Help us to see that you have a purpose and that you are so amazing you can use anyone for your good. Lord, help us to say yes even when we are scared or when we doubt. Help us to find 5 minutes every day that we can give to you. Five minutes that we can just sit and listen without any words. Help us to hear you and to move forward in the path you have set out for us. Lord, we hear you when you say you want forgiveness, and yet forgiveness is so hard. Please help us, please soften our hearts so that we can forgive. Lord, you are a true mystery and you are so powerful. We thank you for being you and for loving us so much. We are so very grateful and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!