Ready or Not...

Matthew 4:19-20 (NIV)  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."  At once they left their nets and followed him.

When I was a kid, my father used to call me to the house by whistling.  He was able to emit a loud, piercing; almost siren like sound and all four of us kids would come running when heard.  We might be on the other block, but we would hear it, in fact we would subconsciously listen for it.  There were big consequences when we didn't respond in a timely manner.

Do we still hear those in authority calling us? Do we respond in the same way, running toward the voice and shouting as we do, "Coming."

A call from Jesus can come at any time in our lives.  We might be fresh out of college and ready to enter the workplace, putting our degree to work for us. We are excited and think we are prepared for the next phase of life.  We might hear an inaudible, "come follow me," and are stopped in our tracks.

The question now or the take-away from today's Word is this, has there been a calling on your life? Have you responded yet?  Did you recognize it, or are you still trying to decipher it?  Maybe there is some denial going on and you are still hedging.  Our calling isn't always clear.  Sometimes God spends years preparing us for the work He created us for.

But, to use a saying I heard years ago, "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called." When God calls us into service, when he convicts us to step out in faith and follow a dream and use our gifts, he doesn't close the door behind, but goes with us.


Matthew 4:18-25