"Saved And Called With A Holy Calling"

II Timothy 1:7-11

7) For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

8) Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

9) Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

10) But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

11) Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

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ne accepting salvation must also accept that the calling to salvation is holy. In a word, this means that all who are called and saved are called first to “holiness.”

The word “holy” comes from the Greek word “hegion” which is translated as “set apart.” From this ministry has come an expanded definition of “set apart” which lets us know that we are “for God’s use, only.” This being the explanation of our existence in the Lord, we must accept that God’s use of us is exclusive (meaning that there is no room for us to cater to ourselves.)

Since we have accepted salvation, nothing that is now a part of us belongs to us. All that we have, all that we are is to elicit glory, honor and praise for the God Who saved us.

We have been delivered from bondage to self. This means that we now owe the flesh absolutely nothing! Therefore, anything that we see as a “problem” is obviously affecting the flesh and the only reason that we would see things as problems is because of the way that we think! In other words, for the flesh to be a “problem,” we must accept it as to problem to us.

Though we now know that our expectations are to be of God and no one else, we persist in forming expectations of others. Since nothing that we do can make anyone do as we expect, we perpetuate many problems amongst us as brothers and sisters.

One of the main reasons that what others do is so unimportant is that believe it or not, one’s happiness is not based upon what is done to or for us, but rather, what we do for God. It is we who have decided that life concerns being please as an individual. God comes into our lives that we might no longer live for the individual, but rather, for the kingdom of God.

One will be eternally disappointed if he believes that life “owes” him something and that eventually, he will be “paid back.” Because of this very fact, the Lord sends salvation that we might be “unencumbered” by the cares and concerns of this life and be free to focus upon the truth of life as revealed by the Holy Spirit.

There is no one thing that one does through human effort that will ever make one saved. We are “saved” when we accept what God has already done. You see, this takes us from the realm of responsibility for our salvation, meaning that we are not responsible for saving ourselves. Since the Lord has done absolutely all that is necessary that we might be saved, all we need do is to accept salvation as granted by Jesus, exercise obedience and walk in the freedom of the death of the flesh.

Too often, we attempt to deal with God as a “mystical” figure. As far as our understanding of that which is “mystical” is concerned, if we deal with things in this way, we will never deal with the “reality” of our salvation. Anything mystical stays without the realm of that with which we are “capable” of “dealing.” Rest assured, God always tells us what to do and how to do it! And as long as we are willing to be obedient, we will find all that we are required to do will be “easy.”

Being “saved” and “called,” we are counted as “peculiar” to God. Contrary to the common definition of “odd,” we are “set apart as belonging to God.” This is a “position” that we have in God, but we are to take no pride in the position, for the importance of the position lies in its execution.

Human beings fight and scrape for “position” and find that it is “empty.” We, contrast, are given a position full of promise and potential—but it remains unfulfilled until and unless we fulfill our responsibilities in it.

Nothing that one is taught in salvation will be able to make any difference in the life it touches unless the one taught is willing to give up his own way of thinking. As long as the enemy can maintain control of that which motivates us, he has us bound to him. As long as we remain concerned with our flesh, we remain limited in what we can do for Him. If we can accept the “liberation” that God grants from the flesh, we can be “bothered” by no one about anything! Through this means, we “strip” him of all that he can use to “mess with” us.

Despite the proliferation of teachers, preachers, churches, and ministries, salvation has never been “about” church structure. It matters not under whom one has learned, nor the amount of scripture one has studied. The question of whether one is saved has never been answered through this. What does answer this question is “What do you do?” This is all that matters. All that we do and all that we say answers the question of where we have been brought in our salvation.

The psychological battle that we fight with the devil is won by remembering this simple adage: “The more he ‘messes,’ the more I need to praise!” He will “mess”—with one’s household, one’s children and one’s life!

One professing salvation and a “calling” needs to understand that much discontent arises from being discontent with one’s requirements. The only remedy for this is that the individual “line up” with the Lord. After all, why would one ever want to accept the benefits of a “position” without also accepting the responsibilities?