Read with Me
1 Timothy 1:18-20 (HCSB)
Timothy, my son, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by them you may strongly engage in battle, having faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and have suffered the shipwreck of their faith. Hymenaeus and Alexander are among them, and I have delivered them to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.
Listen with Me
As Paul correctly understood, each Christian has a calling and a destiny placed on their lives from the moment they respond to God in faith. There are two errors that people tend to make when it comes to the idea of calling and destiny.
The first error is the idea that a calling from God is reserved only for pastors and missionaries; and that “regular Christians” are exempt. While it is true that pastors and missionaries do have those specific callings on their lives, they are not the only ones. Every single follower of Jesus has a role they are called to play in the Body of Christ, just as every single cell in a person’s body has a vital role to play in the health and function of that body.
Some parts of the body may seem to be more necessary or “glamorous” than others, like a heart or a brain. But other more “ordinary” or “behind the scenes” parts are just as essential for the health and effective functioning of that body. Ask anyone whose pancreas, or spleen, or kidneys, or intestines don’t function well!
The second error that people make in the area of God’s calling is the idea that following that call is optional. There are many today who have the calling to be not only pastors or missionaries, but Sunday School teachers, visitors of the sick or shut ins, ushers, greeters, school teachers, doctors, encouragers, and evangelists who have ignored or discounted that calling. They don’t see themselves in those roles, or they don’t see a way forward to pursue them.
The problem is, the role God calls a person to fulfill is the role for which He provides the equipping and the gifting. And each person will never feel complete and fulfilled in any other role. Some believe that they can say “I have always felt the calling to be a missionary, but I have decided to just settle for being a Sunday School teacher in my local church.” Sunday School teachers are good and essential, but if that is not what a person is called to do, they won’t find the same empowerment they would have if they were walking in step with God’s calling, or the same success. Not to mention the fact that they have taken on the role to which God has called someone else, so that they are preventing that other person from fulfilling their own divine calling.
The illustrations Paul uses for this point, Hymenaeus and Alexander, had both rejected God’s calling on their lives, and it had resulted in such a poor outcome in their lives that it had shipwrecked their faith. It had caused them to fall away so far as to become blasphemers, not only speaking untruths about God, but leading lives that brought shame and disgrace on the cause of Christ, a situation that Paul was trying to correct by removing them from the fellowship until they repented.
Pray with Me
Father, I can really see these two errors at work in Your Church, and the dissatisfaction that so many seem to have who are living outside Your calling, as well as the damage that mismatch causes over time. We fail to see Your Church in the larger context of the Body of Christ, with each part having its own specific calling, and view it instead as an organization, which is an entirely different lens, which results in an entirely different view of the people within it. Help me, Lord, to not only see this issue correctly for myself in my own calling, but to help others to do so as well, so that Your kingdom plan can move forward in Your grace and power. Amen.