God Calls Us to Himself

Last week I was asked to bring the message at Ray Ave. Baptist Church, one of our good partners here in New Orleans (Spirit Filled Southern Baptists. Do you believe it?). For those who know me, I’m about missions and ministry, radical action, mobilizing, finding out God’s plan for your life and acting on it. But Sunday, during my early morning devotion time, I was listening to Christmas music, the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir singing a piece called “Love Came Down From Heaven” and as I contemplated the message The Lord spoke to my heart. God doesn’t call us to missions or ministry, He calls us to himself and as His love, personified in Jesus, penetrates our hearts and consumes our lives and as we appropriate that love in our hearts and souls surrendering to it, then will come all the missions and ministry we will ever want. Brennan Manning in is book,


The Relentless Tenderness of
Jesus says this:

    “Before I am asked to show compassion toward my brothers and sisters in their suffering, He asks me to accept His compassion in my own life, to be transformed by it, to become caring and compassionate toward myself in my own suffering and sinfulness, in my own hurt, failure and need. The degree of our compassion for others depends upon our capacity for self acceptance.”

    “When the compassion of Christ is interiorized, made personal and appropriated to ourselves, the breakthrough into caring for others occurs. In the mystery of divine wholeness, the way of compassionate caring for others brings healing to ourselves and compassionate caring for ourselves brings healing to others.”

Once healed, then we can surrender to our sovereign God and perhaps abandon our plans in favor of His. Again from Manning:

   “..abandonment consists of seeing the will of God in all the people, events and circumstances present to you. If God tears up your beautiful game plan and leads you into a valley instead of onto a mountaintop, it is because He wants you to discover
His plan, which is more beautiful than anything you or I could have dreamed up. The response of trust is ‘Thank You, Jesus,’ even if it is said through clenched teeth.”

God loves us and calls us to Himself and that love is unconditional no matter who we are, what we’ve done or where we’ve come from. The scripture tells us,
“We love because He first loved
us.” 

(1st John 4:19). Allow God’s love to overwhelm you so that you can overwhelm others with His love.