Is God’s Call My Work or His?
Living God’s Call: Is it me or Him?
When God impresses a calling on our hearts, it feels exciting. And overwhelming. He usually calls us to acts of kindness or projects or people that are beyond our ability to do on our own. Of course, us Doers in the room normally react with making a list and a plan to get ‘er done!
But is God’s call my work or His? Is He making something happen or is He using me?
In the first chapter of Joshua, we find Moses’s protege, Joshua, taking up the mantle of the job he had probably spent the last forty years assuming Moses would do. For some reason, I always picture Joshua as young and strong, but he would be anywhere from late sixties to early eighties at this point. For forty years, he had seen first hand the difficulty Moses had leading this stubborn people who loved to complain and wander away from God’s instructions. He’s fought battles, managed plagues, and stayed loyal to Moses and to God through all this time.
But now, he faces God’s biggest assignment yet: Hey Joshua, go take the Promised Land you’ve been talking about for the last forty years! As I was reading the first chapter of Joshua, I noticed some verb tenses that have set my mind whirring.
Joshua 1:2- "Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.
Joshua 1:3- Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.
God IS Giving
In Joshua 1:2, we read the first recorded words of the Lord to Joshua with the instruction to finally go across the Jordan into the Promised land that He IS GIVING them. In fact, the same wording occurred forty years earlier when Joshua was one of the twelve sent in to spy the Land. "Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel." (Numbers 13:2)
The Lord started the giving four decades before, but fear paralyzed the people. Now, Joshua again stood on the cusp of the promise. He could gaze across the Jordan River to the Promised Land. Would he be strong and courageous to obey the Lord, lead the people, and go in and possess it?
God HAS Given
If Joshua thought too long about all he had to do and about all the incumbent problems and complications of the task, he might have turned and wandered the desert for another forty years. He’d assisted Moses with managing this mistake-prone group of people he was supposed to lead. He’d led them in battles. He’d endured wandering the desert when he and only one other man, Caleb, had been brave to enter the first time at the border.
Now Moses is gone, as well as all the generation, except for he and Caleb, who had balked at the border before. He must have felt terrified. Why else would the Lord have instructed him to be “strong and courageous” three times in the first nine verses? Joshua needed to be reminded.
But before he was reminded to bring his strength and courage as he crossed the Jordan, the Lord slipped a fact in. He has given the land. As in, he ALREADY has. This is His plan, His intention, His call and He has done the giving.
Does that mean Joshua doesn’t face battles since the Lord already gave the land?
Does that mean Joshua leads the people without their shields up and without scouts going before them to make sure they are safe?
Does that mean they don’t need any more help from the Lord?
Obviously, no. And the lesson for Joshua is a lesson for us.
God IS giving what He HAS given.
God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Will
The age old question is whether our efforts make any difference? After all, isn’t God going to do whatever He wants to do and has planned? Why pray or work or share the gospel if the Lord already HAS decided and HAS chosen?
Well, I guess the best answer is because that is the way God works. He had always called His people to work alongside Him in His plan.
He created the perfect garden and then told Adam and Eve to tend it.
He called Noah to build an ark to save his family and the animals from the world-wide flood, and then Noah spent years constructing the boat.
He instructed Moses to lead His people to freedom, and then Moses had to confront Pharoah over and over as the Lord sent the plagues.
He directed Samuel to anoint David as king, and then David spent years fighting for his life as King Saul tried to destroy him.
He established the New Testament church and then told them to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, which led them straight into opposition.
In the book of Deuteronomy, a record of the last sermon Moses gives the people, he tells them eight times that the Lord HAS GIVEN them the land. But He tells them 28 times that the Lord IS GIVING them the land. Both are true at the same time.
God is the Accomplisher of every good work. When the Lord calls us to anything, He says, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Here is the way. Walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21 ESV)
Our job is to DO what He calls us to do, trusting in what He has predetermined for the outcome. Our job isn’t fulfillment, but obedience.
Jesus gave us this model. Jesus, who from the moment of Adam and Eve’s sin was promised as our atonement, was given the job to be the sacrifice without whom we cannot have forgiveness.
But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. (John 5:36)
The Father gave Jesus the works to do. Those works proclaimed His divinity. And the greatest work, dying on the cross, was given to Him. Without obedience to that work, we would have no salvation.
The salvation God HAD GIVEN felt a long way off standing at the door of the closed tomb. But the salvation God IS GIVING was realized with the stone rolled back and the tomb empty.
So what is God calling you to do? He has already given you the victory as He calls you to move forward and DO what He tells you. He didn’t have to include us, but He did. The victory isn’t ours. But the obedience is.
What is the Lord calling you to do today? What battle to fight? What persecution to endure? What enemy to love? What person to share the gospel with?
May we all walk in what the Lord HAS GIVEN us to do by:
Asking the Lord for wisdom in what He has for us to do
Daniel 2:23- To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you, for you have made known to us the king's matter."
2. Searching the Word for the life He has given us there.
Psalm 119:93- I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.
Thank You, Lord, for all You HAVE GIVEN and ARE GIVING.