Welcome to the 2019 Men’s Kickoff!
I am so glad you joined us. You heard the call to celebrate, consecrate and commit 2019 to King Jesus alongside your brother.
The cares of this world, the pursuit of happiness, and a consumer mindset can all distort the call. We can reduce our mission and vision to self-serving to-do lists. We can replace spiritual food with carnal addictions. When the most high points of our week involve money, food, drugs, or sex, we are in trouble. When we feed our appetites to quiet unnamed fears, we are standing on sinking sand. But Jesus calls us to something greater. Our Lord called His first disciples: “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17 ESV) Now He’s calling each of us.
ANSWER
WHAT DOES
So what does it look like to answer?
First, we need to reposition every other loyalty to follow Christ. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ.” Jesus is either Lord of all or not Lord at all. Second, the call assigns a process to access Christ’s presence, provision and power. The process involves three things:
Trust: Trust is the basis of surrender to prayer, study, church attendance, and more. And surrender is not easy. Because it requires that we become vulnerable. Acknowledging a wound is critical to healing. But some of us have never done it. Remember, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)
So what does it mean to Answer the Call?
A calling is a divine invitation or summons. God reveals Himself, and our assignment, to us at His appointed time. The call brings out the best in us after revealing the need for change. It interrupts our plans, to set the course of our lives. Most of our plans involve some form of rebellion. We want to do our thing. We want to make a name for ourselves. We want to go our own way. But, the primary call on every man’s life is God’s command to turn away from rebellion and become loyal subjects of King Jesus.
Your own ears will hear Him.
Right behind you a voice will say,
“This is the way you should go,”
whether to the right or to the left.
Then you will destroy all your silver idols and your precious gold images.
You will throw them out like filthy rags,
saying to them, “Good riddance!”
(Isaiah 30:21-22 NLT)
Many of us believe we’ve answered this first and primary call. We’ve discarded some idols and decided to follow God. But how loyal are we to Him? And how Royal is He in our lives? How well are we submitting to divine authority?
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