God’s Irrevocable Call is Cause for Thanks.
God’s irrevocable call is cause for thanks. Why? To begin with, if He retracted His call to His people, that would make Him false and unworthy of obedience or worship.
Instead, “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.”
God doesn’t change and his words are true.
So, when He moves through the garden of Eden calling Adam, offering him a chance to emerge from hiding and confess, it’s clear that God created people because He wanted us to be with Him. How unthinkably terrible if that desire changed on some whim.
Yet, when people chose to deny the way God revealed himself in creation, God spoke to Noah, calling him to build an ark, preserving the animals and his family. After that, He called Abraham. Every time He sent a prophet, it was with the same intention: Bring His people back to Him.
Jesus came and called His disciples. He also mourned over the people of Jerusalem, and their leaders.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
If we follow Him, we also are called. Called to wake from the sleep of self-involvement. To make good on the faith we confess, define sin as what it is, clearly, without evasive euphemisms, and speak frankly.
God’s Son and the prophets are our examples, so it’s obvious the call isn’t easy, but God doesn’t change, and his words are true. God’s irrevocable call is cause for thanks, giving us purpose and lasting reward and fellowship with Him.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman