Now that 2011 is getting smaller in the rear view mirror and we’ve all entered the front gate of 2012 world—it’s time for everyone in Christendom to decide (consciously or unconsciously) whether or not they are going to report for duty.
What do I mean by, “Report for Duty?”
Well, every believer is first “called,”
” Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” Eph. 4:1
So there’s no denying the “Call of Duty.” In fact, denying you got a draft notice isn’t even en vogue these days. No, the new rage is simply not reporting for duty and daring God to do anything about it. The cat’s out of the bag, when we turn our back on God a lightning bolt won’t automatically strike you dead. The fear of this occurring used to do wonders for the roster until some smart alec somewhere actually looked through the Bible for even one instance of God throwing a bolt down on some cocky punk who danced too close to the line too many times. Go ahead and look for it—I’ll wait. But if you would just trust me a little more I could save you a lot of trouble, it’s not in there.
So what’s happened is—people aren’t afraid anymore. Sad, because God didn’t want your knees clanking together or your teeth chattering anyway. That’s not the kind of fear the Bible talks about. When the Bible talks about fearing the Lord it’s mostly referring to reverence for the Lord (another dying art). But that’s another post for another time. They don’t call me Rabbit Trail Robbie for nothing
The point is, whether we believe it or not there is a call of duty on the life of every believer. Whether we answer or not, there’s still a call of duty on the life of every believer. When you are a believer you are marked out for great things in the kingdom of God whether you do them or not. In fact, that’s our very mission statement as a church, (to impact people everywhere with the love of Christ by…
- Marking the body
- Marking the community
- Marking the world
- Marking the future
And our verse for a church comes from the Message Acts 13:48 “all who were marked out for real life put their trust in God — they honored God’s Word by receiving that life. And this message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.”
Friends, if I had to pick just a handful of times during the year where God institutes the draft and calls forth believers in the church for duty NOW would be one of them. Others would be Easter and back-to-school but how many of you (other than Christmas time) thought that after Christmas in the lull of the new year, would be another of those critical times? How could it not be? All the new believers, all the fruit of our labors, everything that happened at Christmas –all of it now hangs in the balance and depends on how we handle things right out of the gate in the new year.
At Southbrook Church we put out the call of duty and it’s all hands on deck in January 2012. Why? Because we had 244 people give their lives to Jesus Christ and all of those new believers need to be discipled. That doesn’t happen at all when there’s a dereliction of duty by the disciples. That doesn’t happen by just showing up at church one hour a couple Sundays a month. That can’t all happen by one man in the role of pastor. That happens when the entire Church answers the call of duty and agrees to disciple these individuals one-on-one, in smaller groups, in larger gatherings, and just doing life together.
So there’s no question—God put’s out the call to every believer to report in the new year for duty. There’s plenty of work to be done. There’s a role for everyone.
Will you answer the call?