I loved our time together this past Tuesday! I am excited about what the coming weeks will bring!
Each week I pray for God to give me a message to deliver to you all. This past week that message was to encourage and challenge us to remember the wonder of what was accomplished for us on the cross. I never want to cease to be amazed at the grace of God as though I am somehow entitled to His love and favor.
I started with a verse from Genesis 1:3 – And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.
Before He would spend the next six days creating the earth, I imagine God foreknew the beauty and wonder that would exist when He was finished. Before any command was spoken into this dark and empty space, He knew that this ‘place’ would come to reflect His glory. In order for all that He envisioned to be actualized, He began by calling forth light.
For centuries upon centuries, the message of Jesus Christ has been preached. For centuries upon centuries people have responded to the gospel with either faith or indifference. The question I attempted to answer on Tuesday night was this: How might we explain what causes us to go from simple hears of the gospel, to a life marked by trust in the gospel which leads to the obedience of faith Paul describes in Romans 1 and 2?
Note this is MY view!
I believe there are two types of calls that go forth when the gospel is preached: a universal call and a divine-effectual call.
The universal call –
- A universal call is what you and I, as recipients of grace, are obligated to preach. Not because we owe it to God. If we had to pay for what we received from His it could not be considered a gift given by grace.
- When you hear good news about how to escape from a common misery, you become a debtor to tell the good news to others so they can escape the misery too. If you withhold the good news of grace from others, as if you were qualified for it, and they were not, then you show that you have never understood grace.
- We are instructed by Jesus to carry the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Our motivation is to see the name of the Lord proclaimed in all the earth and to see many be brought to faith in Jesus as their only hope to be reconciled to God.
A divine-effectual call –
- The divine effectual call is the call that truly brings forth faith.
- It causes a person to submit themselves to a God and theology that once seemed foolish.
- It is spoken by God!
- All who hear this call are saved!!
2 Corinthians 4: 6 says: For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
You are not a believer simply because you heard a few stories that sounded good to you. You are a believer because God gave you sight! He awakened your soul, softened the hardness of your heart and extended you grace so that you might see Jesus as the righteousness of God. God’s divine-effectual call kindled in you a love for His name and His Son.
Just as God, knowing the fullness of His creative intent beforehand, called forth light in the earth, He has done the same in each of our hearts! He spoke light into your life because He knows that when His work in you is complete, you will reflect His glory!
I pray that as we continue to study Romans we would be in awe of the beauty and mystery of amazing grace.
See you ladies next time!
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