Called and Sent

I have questions for you. How close are you to God? If you are not close to God, are you open to God's teachings? If you have a close relationship with God, what type of relationship is it? How does it manifest itself in your daily life? How do you see yourself in relationship to God, what type of believer are you?

Do you see yourself as a devout follower, one who not only believe in God and the teachings of Jesus, but also one who tries to live out those teachings showing your faith in thought, word, and action? Or, do you see yourself as an emissary or representative of God to people who you live and work with, pointing them toward the God that you believe in and serve throughout your life? Representing God is reflecting God in all you do.

Maybe you see yourself as a plain servant of God. Meaning that you usually do the things that you believe God is leading you to do and not trying to boast or be noticed but being an ordinary servant as typical to your relationship with God.

Do you express your relationship with God in any of these ways: as God's mouthpiece, a preacher, evangelist, prophet, or activist? You could also relate God's role for you as a sage who learns and meditates on God's word and delves deeper into who God is and how to better understand God's will and then acts as a spiritual reservoir where spiritually thirsty people can come to draw out of when needed.

Another way that people act out their relationship with God is as a soldier for God. If you see yourself as a soldier, you may be ready to defend your faith and anyone or group who is being persecuted because of their faith in God; or as a helper and advocate of the weak, poor, sick, and oppressed.

If you see yourself in a close relationship with God acting as either a true follower, representative, ordinary servant, mouthpiece, spiritual reservoir, or soldier/helper/advocate, these roles all have at least one thing in common. These are all the ways of relating to God that are not in complete control of where they go nor of whom they are sent to connect with or be of service to as they fulfill their service to God.

If we choose to live our lives for God in any of these ways what does it take for us to positively respond to and be in right relationship with God so that we can fulfill our service to God in the ways listed above, or in any number of other ways?

We must fulfill our service to God acting in any of the ways we feel God leading us to perform. The rise in violence in our present world is reminiscent of the lack of living in close relationship with God among the people of Israel in the Bible as represented in the increasing numbers of reported crimes that have devastated and destroyed lives from babies to the elderly, from every walk of life all over the world.

What is our response to it? We can start by reading Isaiah 6:1-8, and if you want to get some important background information, read the previous chapters of Isaiah 1-5 as well. We will discover the way that God dealt with a wayward chosen nation and by way of that example, can offer to us as a lifeline out of the mire and mess we have put ourselves into.