Responding to God's Call

My Utmost For His Highest Dec 22

“When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? To discuss or deliberate over spiritual matters when God calls is inappropriate and disrespectful to Him. When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see Galatians 1:15-16). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my will whereby I deliberately commit myself. But will I commit, placing myself completely and absolutely on God, and be willing to act solely on what He says? If I will, I will find that I am grounded on reality as certain as God’s throne.”

To properly respond to God does not mean that we should not seek council on whether it is God’s call, but we should not ask others ‘Should I obey the call?’  That we MUST NOT do.  The call is between us and God … James 14:17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.  Pretty clear …. Belief is not intellectual or emotional … both are from natural source .. our own being and have nothing to do with God.  But, both intellect and emotion, seeming right at the time,  have led many people down a path that drew them away from God to a place of disappointment and heartache. 

When God calls us and we know it is God, it is not a time to do a cost analysis, use the classical problem solving model, Define the problem, identify alternative solutions, compare the advantages and disadvantages, choose an alternative and act on it.  We must be ‘willing to act solely on what He says’.  That is called living and walking by faith and not by sight ….