Call/Calling

"There is no such thing as a call from God that is not a call ‘out of’ the world.  The church is ekklesia."—Watchman Nee in Love Not the World

“The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and world’s deep hunger meet.”—Frederick Buechner

“After all, our calling to glorify God will never end.”—Randy Alcorn in Heaven

“There are certain things that you do not need a calling to do.  You’ve already been commanded to do them.”--Erwin Raphael McManus in Chasing Daylight
           
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”—Dietrich Bonjoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship
           
“The call to the “extraordinary” is the inevitable risk men must take when they follow Christ.”--Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship

“The call asks, Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you?  I believe that this question is at the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually.”--Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel
           
“A life lived listening to the decisive call of God is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others—the Audience of One.”--Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Calling is central to the challenge and privilege of finishing well in life.”--Os Guinness in The Call
           
“. . . calling directly counters the great modern pressure toward secularization because the call of Jesus includes a summons to the exercise of the spiritual disciplines and the experience of supernatural realities.”--Os Guinness in The Call

The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not of our nature . . . The call of God is not the echo of my nature; my affinities and personal temperament are not considered.  As long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God . . . The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says.  To be brought into the zone of the call of God is to be profoundly altered.--Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest

“The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him.”--Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
           
“Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God.”--Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
           
“The call of God relates us to the purpose of God.”--Oswald Chambers in So Send I You 102
“He whose calling doth not like him, nor ‘fit his genius,’ as we say, will never excel in it.”—William Gurnall in The Christian in Complete Armour

“Every moral call has an “ought” behind it.”—Oswald Chamber in My Utmost for His Highest

The call of God is not a call to serve Him in any particular way. My contact with the nature of God will shape my understanding of His call and will help me realize what I truly desire to do for Him. The call of God is an expression of His nature; the service which results in my life is suited to me and is an expression of my nature.—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
           
“God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand His call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation of absolute love.”—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
           
“It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment.”—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest
           
“The exacting call of Jesus Christ has no margin of good-byes, because good-bye, as it is often used, is pagan, not Christian.  When once the call of God comes, begin to go and never stop going.”—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest

The call of God embarrasses us because of two things—it presents us with sealed orders, and urges us to a vast venture.  When God calls us He does not tell us along the line of our natural senses what to expect; God’s call is a command that asks us, that means there is always a possibility of refusal on our part.  Faith never knows where it is being led, it knows and loves the one who is leading.  It is a life of faith, not of intelligence and reason, but a life of knowing who is making me “go.”—Oswald Chambers in Not Knowing Where 12

The call of God is essentially expressive of the nature of God, it is His own voice . . . Very few of us hear the call of God because we are not in the place to answer; the call does not communicate because we have not the nature of the One Who is calling . . . To be brought within the zone of God’s voice is to be profoundly altered.—Oswald Chambers in So Send I You

The call of God is not a call to any particular service, although my interpretation of the call may be; the call to service is the echo of my identification with God.  My contact with the nature of God has made me realize what I can do for God.  Service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature; God’s call is fitted to His nature, and I never hear His call until I have received His nature.  When I have received His nature, then His nature and mine work together; the Son of God reveals Himself in me, and I, the natural man, serve the Son of God in ordinary ways, out of sheer downright devotion to Him.—Oswald Chambers in So Send I You 12

“The only way I can begin to fulfil the call of God is by keeping my convictions out of the way, my convictions as to what I imagine I am fitted for.”—Oswald Chambers in So Send I You 16
           
“Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people—the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.”—Oswald Chambers in So Send I You 52
           
“Our call is not to successful service, but to faithfulness.”—Oswald Chambers in So Send I You

We have nothing to do with what will happen if we obey; we have to abandon to God’s call in unconditional surrender, leaving behind all our shivering wisdom, and smilingly wash our hands of the consequences.  However, this does not mean that a life of faith is a life of fate.—Oswald Chambers in Not Knowing Where 45

The call of God only becomes clear as we obey, never as we weigh the pros and cons and try to reason it out.  The call is God’s idea, not our idea; and only on looking back over the path of obedience do we realize what God’s idea has been all along, for God sanctifies memory.—Oswald Chambers in Not Knowing Where 45

“You say you are called to be a missionary, a minister, a Christian worker; you are called to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, other things are etceteras.”—Oswald Chambers in God’s Workmanship 127
           
“The first thing that impresses us about the call of God is that it comes to the whole person, not to one part of the person.  The majority of us are godly in streaks, spiritual in sections; it takes a long time to locate us altogether to the call of God.”—Oswald Chambers in He Shall Glorify Me 121

The call of God is a call according to the nature of God; where we go in obedience to that call depends entirely on the providential circumstances that God engineers and is not of any moment.  The danger is to fit the call of God into the idea of our own discernment and say, “God called me there.”  If we say so and stick to it, then it is good-bye to the development of the life of God in us.  We have deliberately shifted the ground of His call to fit our own conception of what He wants.—Oswald Chambers in The Psychology of Redemption 50,51

“No experience on earth is sufficient to be taken as a call of God; you must know that the call is from God, for whom you care more than for all your experiences, then nothing can daunt you.”—Oswald Chambers in Disciples Indeed  259
           
“If you are called to preach the Gospel, God will crush you till the light of the eye, the power of the life, the ambition of the heart, is all riveted on Him.  That is not done easily.  It is not a question of saintliness, it has to do with the call of God.”—Oswald Chambers in Disciples Indeed 260
           
“One man or woman called of God is worth a hundred who have elected to work for God.”—Oswald Chambers in Run Today’s Race

The member of the Body of Christ has been delivered from the world and called out of it.  He must give the world a visible proof of his calling, not only by sharing in the Church’s worship and discipline, but also through the new fellowship of brotherly living.  If the world despises one of the brethren, the Christian will love and serve him.  If the world does him violence, the Christian will succor and comfort him.  If the world dishonours and insults him, the Christian will sacrifice his own honour to cover his brother’s shame.  Where the world seeks gain, the Christian will renounce it.  Where the world exploits, he will dispossess himself, and where the world oppresses, he will stoop down and raise up the oppressed.  If the world refuses justice, the Christian will pursue mercy, and if the world takes refuge in lies, he will open his mouth for the dumb, and bear testimony to the truth.  For the sake of the brother, be he Jew or Greek, bond or free, strong or weak, noble or base, he will renounce all fellowship with the world.  For the Christian serves the fellowship of the Body of Christ, and he cannot hide it from the world. He is called out of the world to follow Christ.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship      
 
Hence the Christian’s task is to live out that life in terms of his secular calling.  That is the way to die unto the world.  The value of the secular calling for the Christian is that it provides an opportunity of living the Christian life with the support of God’s grace, and of engaging more vigorously in the assault on the world and everything that it stands for.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship

“Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.--Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him.”--Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him.”--Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Instead of, ‘You are what you do,’ calling says: ‘Do what you are.’—Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Individual callings should complement, not contradict, the corporate calling.”—Os Guinness in The Call
           
“Discover the meaning of calling and you discover the heart of the gospel itself.”—Os Guinness in The Call
           
“The truth of calling is as vital to our ending as to our beginning.”—Os Guinness in The Call
“The biggest challenge in working out our sense of calling is not consistency in carrying out that call, but certainty regarding what we are to do.”—Charles Ringma in Dare to Journey with Henri Nouwen

“God’s primary call, his address to us, always has two dimensions: summons and invitation, law and grace, demand and offer.”—Os Guinness in The Call
           
“First, God’s call always challenges us directly to rise to our full stature as human beings.”—Os Guinness in The Call
           
“The notion of calling is vital to the modern search for a basis for moral responsibility and to an understanding of ethics itself.”—Os Guinness in The Call

The haunting specter of the smoke of a thousand villages in the morning sun is burned within my heart . . . Lord, send me anywhere, only go with me.  Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.  Sever any ties but the ties that bind me to your service and to your heart.—David Livingstone

 “Calling is a “yes” to God that carries a “no” to the chaos of modern demands.”—Os Guinness in The Call

“Calling resists politicization by demanding a tension with every human allegiance and association.  Calling resists pillarization by requiring an attitude toward, and action in, society that is inevitably transforming because it is constantly engaged.”—Os Guinness in The Call

“The closeness between calling and conceit is easy to see.  After all, to be called is to hear God whisper three things to you in a hundred intimate ways—'You are chosen; you are gifted; you are special.’”—Os Guinness in The Call

“Calling reminds Christians ceaselessly that, far from having arrived, a Christian is someone who in this life is always on the road as ‘a follower of Christ’ and a follower of ‘the Way.’”--Os Guinness in The Call

“Awakened to our deepest gifts and aspirations, we know that consideration of calling always has to precede consideration of career and that we can seek the deepest satisfaction in work only within the perspective of calling.”—Os Guinness in The Call

“For what service I was accepted I knew not, but a deep consciousness that I was not my own took possession of me which has never since been effaced.”—Hudson Taylor
           
“We did not come to China because missionary work here was either safe or easy, but because He had called us.”—Hudson Taylor
           
“If the Divine call does not make us better, it will make us very much worse. Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst.  Of all created beings the wickedest is one who originally stood in the immediate presence of God.”—C.S. Lewis in Reflections on the Psalms
           
“Where your talent and the needs of the world cross, your calling can be found.”—Aristotle
           
“God does not call the equipped, He equips the called.”—Unknown
           
“A “call to ministry” is by default automatically understood as abstinence from secular work.  Do we have any biblical basis for this ingrained belief?”—Stephen David in House Church

A calling, which is something I do for God, is replaced by a career, which threatens to become my god.  A career is something I choose for myself; a calling is something I receive.  A career is something  I do for myself; a calling is something I do for God.  A career promises status, money or power; a calling generally promises difficulty and even some suffering—and the opportunity to be used by God.  A career is about upward mobility; a calling generally leads to downward mobility.—John Ortberg
           
“The call has never stopped it’s the listening that has stopped.”—Brady Boyd
           
“Discerning our specific calling comes through a mature communion with the Holy Spirit.  In other words, a theology of vocation is contingent upon a practical theology of prayer.”—Skye Jethani in Immeasurable
           
“Our call is to possess that love of God which reaches into eternity and brings the glory and Person of Christ into His earthly house.”—Francis Frangipane in The House of the Lord

“In missionary enterprise the great danger is that God’s call is effaced by the needs of the people until human sympathy absolutely overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus.”—Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest
           
“If God calls you to a ministry then He calls you to pray for that ministry.”—Dr. J. Robert Clinton in The Making Of A Leader Second Edition: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development p. 100
           
“Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called, and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry.”—A.W. Tozer
​
A calling, which is something I do for God, is replaced by a career, which threatens to become my god. A career is something I choose for myself; a calling is something I receive. A career is something I do for myself; a calling is something I do for God. A career promises status, money or power; a calling generally promises difficulty and even some suffering—and the opportunity to be used by God. A career is about upward mobility; a calling generally leads to downward mobility.—John Ortberg, in If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat
​