EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/05/2025 6:07 PM
My Worship Time Focus “Called”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jude
1b
Message of the verse: “To those who are the called,”
The first thing that I want to do is to see how called
translates the adjectival pronoun kletos,
and this is related to the familiar verb kaleo,
“to call.” Now it is the main word
in the sentence which has two perfect passive participles (describing believers)
in opposition to it, which is how John MacArthur describes it. He goes on to
explain “Even as the English translation suggests, the word conveys the idea of
being personally chosen or selected. God
has called believers to Himself; has set them apart and chosen them as His
children.” Now may I add that it took me
a fairly long time to believe this, but I don’t think that anyone will ever
truly understand it until we get to heaven.
MacArthur goes on to write this important paragraph: “Jude here is not speaking about God’s
general invitation to sinners (Isa. 45:22; 55:6; Ezek. 33:11; Matt. 11:28;
22:14; 23:37; Luke 14:16-24; John 7:37; Rev. 22:17)—a call which often goes
unheeded and rejected (cf. Matt. 12:14; Luke 4:16-19, 28-30; Acts 4:13-18;
5:17-18, 26-28, 33-40; 7:54-58; 2 Cor. 2:15-16). Rather he is speaking of God’s special,
internal call through which he awakens the human will and imparts spiritual
life—enabling once-dead sinners to embrace the gospel by faith (cf. John 5:21;
Acts 16:14; Eph. 2:5). It is what Christ
referred to when He said, ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me
draws him’ (John 6:44; cf. v. 65). Paul
also referred to the effectual call of believers when he wrote Timothy.
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the
gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us
in Christ Jesus from all eternity. (2 Tim. 1:8-9; cf. Rom. 1:6-7; 8:30; 1 Cor.
1:1-2, 9, 24; 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 Peter 3:9; Rev. 17:14)
I
will continue to quote from MacArthur’s commentary and then at the end of that
quotation write some things that I have learned about this “effectual calling.”
“In
His sovereign wisdom, God chose believers based solely on His gracious purpose
in Christ from before time began. His
call was not rooted in anything He saw in them—not even their foreseen faith…Rather,
His call was motivated by His own glory and good pleasure, that His mercy might
be eternally put on display (Rom. 9:23-24).”
“23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for
glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only,
but also from among Gentiles.” MacArthur
goes on “Believers, then, are those who are divinely elected to salvation. They did not earn God’s choice; nor can they
lose it or have it taken away (cf. John 6:37-40; 10:17-30; Rom. 8:28-30,
38-39). Thus, they can rest in the
security of God’s gracious call, even in the most dangerous conflict with false
teaching.”
I
know that I have told the story of when the Holy Spirit gave me an effectual
call for salvation in other SD’s. I have
mentioned that when I was around ten years old that I went fishing with some
older friends of mine, and because I wanted to impress them I began to swear,
and, when I was with friends of mine from that time on I continued to
swear. Even when I told the Lord that if
He would get me out of the army, which I was drafted in 59 years ago today, and
He did get me out of the army on a medical discharge, a problem I only had for
the time I was being prepared to go to the army until I got out of the army 23
days after entering it. The point is
that after a few weeks I started to swear again, really forgetting about what I
told the Lord. This was in 1966 and then
after getting married, having a daughter, and then getting a divorce and then
getting married again I went to visit a friend of mine in Florida in January of
1974. I went alone and had impure
motives when I got there, but my friend gave me some sermons on tape to listen to
by Hal Lindsey about how the world was going to end, something I was frightened
about for a very long time. On January 26th the Lord saved me as I
was given what MacArthur was writing about getting an effectual call through
the Holy Spirit. All I can say is that I
have sworn only three times in 52 years, which showed me that God is the one
who stopped my swearing that I tried to stop back in 1966 while in the army.
The
Bible says that because of Adam and Eve’s sin that all of their offspring,
which is everybody ever born are born with a sin nature, and that is why we
sin. I don’t suppose that you have had
to teach your children to do wrong, as they do that because they were born with
a sin nature. We are spiritually dead
when we are born and so that is why in order to be saved the Holy Spirit has to
give us an effectual call for salvation, and then we are given a new nature in
order to follow what the Lord has called us to do for the cause of Christ. This is the call that MacArthur is writing
about in this section of his commentary from Jude 1b.
7/5/2025 7:03 PM
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