Receiving A Call From God

 
On the recent video I uploaded to the site I mention that “God Called” me to serve as Pastor of First Baptist Church of Rahway. It didn’t occur to me that some of you good folks who regularly visit this site are not familiar with that expression. I’ve spent my whole life in the Christian World so it didn’t dawn on me that a common expression that I use is really jargon and needs to be defined. So, here is my attempt to define what a calling from God is, and I hope that I am up to the task.
 
People in the ministry refer to calling as receiving a clear message from God that we are supposed to do something. That is a very broad, general definition. So let’s try to break it down. How does God send a person a message? That’s a tough one to answer. In the Bible messages are delivered by; God directly, Angels as intermediaries, Dreams, Visions, Voices from Above, Prophets, and in at least one occurrence, a ghost. In my experience, friends of mine have described all of these types of callings, with the exception of the ghostly kind. On several occasions I have heard God’s voice in my head telling me to do something. God called me into the ministry while I was in the balcony of my church, during a sermon the subject of which I still can’t remember. I just knew that God was speaking to me and told me it was time for me to enter the ministry. I was already thinking about it, but God’s voice pushed me over the brink. At other times, I have had a profound feeling that I needed to do something and I felt that God was moving me in a certain direction. Now in both of these circumstances I can’t prove that the communications were from God. But this gives you an idea what we people of faith are talking about when we speak about being called by God.
 
The only other thing I can say on the subject is this. Faith is based entirely upon personal experience with the Creator. There is no way any of us who experience God’s presence in our lives can provide evidence that we are not kidding ourselves. I have known many people who were kidding themselves, and the evidence I point to is that they ended up doing evil things in their ministry. However, for the large majority of people who have received some kind of calling from The Lord, the experience is real. The only proof of which is the way we live. People who are truly called by God, live a life worth living. And that is because God helps us to make that happen. If you want to know more, start talking to God, and you’ll find God will talk to you in return.
 
Peace,
 
Pastor Bill Whitehead