How God Calls Us

You may think of God's call to those who are to be pastors or missionaries. Yet, there is the call of God in the New Testament to believe on our Lord Jesus Christ. God's call is out of darkness into the light of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9). 

God calls us to respond to the gospel of Christ. We do so in repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). The gospel is for whoever, but not all will respond (Romans 10:13). Those who do are the called of God (Romans 8:28).

God calls us out of spiritual darkness into the light of Christ. Our eyes of understanding are opened to Christ crucified for our sins and raised from the dead for our justification. We are enabled to live in the light. "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

God calls us by the Holy Spirit and the word of the gospel (Romans 1:16). When God calls us in this sense, we may respond to the gospel by turning to God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our hearts are changed by the grace of God. Certainly, the gospel is preached to all, but the effective call is when we repent, or turn to God, through faith in Christ. 

How God Gives Faith

God gives faith looking not to yourself nor anyone else, but looking unto Jesus. All the faith that you will ever need is a gift. Look to Jesus through the teaching of the word of God in your Bible. So then God gives you faith. If you need more faith, seek not greater faith. Seek the One who gives you faith, greater faith, and manifesting faith."Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith"(Hebrews 12:2).

God gives faith through the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4). When the Holy Spirit enlightens your heart, the darkness of doubt and unbelief is dismissed. God gives faith received through the word of God. "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

God gives faith through the Holy Spirit. Faith is one of the three abiding gifts of the Holy Spirit. "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). Notice that faith comes not without the gifts of hope and love. The Holy Spirit always gives these three gifts together. They come to abide in all who are born of the Spirit.

Faith is the gift of God to you. And, how do you receive such faith? It comes from the word of God through the Son of God, as a gift of the Spirit of God. God gives faith looking unto Jesus.

Pray God's Promises

Prayer is based on the covenant promises of God. We are praying the promises of God that cannot fail."God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2). The covenant promises of God are sure to you as a believer in Christ. He is the Yes to your prayers. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and Amen, to the glory of God through us" (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Pray the promises of God that cannot fail. God's promises are for all who trust in Him. Those promises are for all who trust in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Yes and Amen to your prayers, based on all the covenant promises of God. "He remembers His covenant forever" (Psalm 105:8). Herein you find that prayer receives. 

Pray the promises of God in Jesus name. In Jesus Christ, all the promises of God are "Yes and Amen" for believers (2 Corinthians 1:20). Jesus is the surety of all the everlasting covenant promises. "Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant"(Hebrews 7:22). That's the reason you pray in the name of Jesus. 

Prayer by faith the promises of God. You will receive the promises of God that cannot fail. "God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2). The promises of God are sure to you as a believer in Christ. He is the Yes to your prayers. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes."

Revealed Knowledge

The Bible is revealed knowledge inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. It is infallible because God is indeed infallible in all things, including prophecy of the Bible. It is inerrant because God speaks only truth throughout the Bible. 

The Bible teaches the faith once for all delivered to God's people (Jude 3). Revealed knowledge in the Bible is truth without any mixture of error. The same Holy Spirit, who inspired the Bible, reveals God the Father to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Bible is revealed knowledge of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is revealed to us in Christ through the Bible (John 14:9). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He guides us into all truth (John 16:13). Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

The Bible is revealed knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:16; Hebrews 1:1-3). God the Father reveals Himself to you through God the Son, as revealed by God the Holy Spirit in the Bible. We know God through the Bible, revealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit. To know the only true God in Christ is to receive eternal life (John 17:3). The Bible is revealed knowledge inspired by the Holy Spirit.

How God Chose Us

God chose us in Christ as the church (Grk: ekklesia), the called out ones. God chose us in Christ to be holy before him in love (Ephesians 1:4-8). God the Father chose us in Christ. The Bible uses marriage imagery to describe our salvation. In Bible days, a father chose a bride for his son, so God our Father chose the bride for his Son. God chose the church as the bride of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:24-26). 

God the Father chose us in Christ the Son. The chosen of God are all believers in Christ. All who repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are chosen. Our calling and election is sure in Christ alone (2 Peter 1:10-11). 

God chose us in Christ, because in Christ alone sinners are saved (Acts 4:12). He is the only one who died for sinners. He is the only one raised from the dead to justify sinners and save us from condemnation and eternal judgment. The Son of God is the only way to God our Father (John 14:6). Those who refuse to believe in Christ reject God's one and only way of salvation (Acts 4:12).

Scripture makes it clear that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. God foreknew all who shall be in Christ (Romans 8:29-30; Ephesians 1:4). God knows all things, the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). God foreknew his people in Christ before time began. God chosen us in Christ alone. 

Christ Our Substitute

J. I. Packer wrote, "thus knowledge of Christ's death for us as our sin-bearing substitute requires us to see ourselves as dead, risen, and alive forevermore in him. We who have died, painlessly and invisibly, we might say, in solidarity with him because he died, painfully and publicly in substitution for us."

The apostle Paul testified, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20). 

Paul understood that Christ is our substitute in his death and resurrection. Believers trust Christ as our substitute. He was crucified in our place. He is risen from the dead as our justification. So it is with all true believers. We died in Christ as our substitute. We are risen in Christ as our living Lord.

Baptism symbolizes every believer's union in Christ, through his death, burial and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4). He died for our sins. He took our judgment at the cross. We are risen with him to new life through the Holy Spirit. 

As we were born unto sin in Adam, so we are born again to new life in Christ. Therefore, we have become a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). As true believers, we died to our old life in Christ our substitute.

How Are We Saved?

The Bible tells us clearly how we are saved. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). 

We are saved by grace alone as the gift of God. We cannot earn nor do we deserve God's salvation in Christ. It's by grace through faith. That means it's not of yourself. God saves you by grace, and it's through faith in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

We are saved by grace alone, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That faith is one of the three abiding gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 13:13). The Holy Spirit enables you to come to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, who inspired the Holy Scripture, uses the word of God to bring the gift of faith to you (Romans 10:17).

We are saved by grace alone, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to know Jesus as your Lord (Romans 10:9) "And no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:3). The Holy Spirit applies God's grace in Christ to save you.

We are saved by grace alone to the praise of God's glory (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). To God alone be the glory! There is no room for us to receive the glory when it's all of grace. It is not your work for God, but God's gracious work in you, to the praise of His glory.