Knowing Your Calling
By Rick Joyner
Paul Cain once made the statement that on earth prophets are known more for what they say, but they are known in heaven for what they keep to themselves. That is why the Scripture says, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). One will never be a true prophet until he or she learns how to keep divine secrets.
One of the primary purposes of the New Testament prophetic ministry is to encourage the members of the body to walk in and fulfill their callings. Even so, it is a misuse of this ministry to use them as gurus or soothsayers, or as a cheap source of supernatural knowledge. Members of the body will be stronger if they receive the revelation directly from God and it is only confirmed by us.
However, the prophet is a part of the body, and was given to the church to help us when we need it. Every one of the most fruitful aspects of my ministry today I have heard from the Lord that I was supposed to do. But I did not launch out into them, until I received a word from a prophetic friend, who declared them with knowledge that revealed the secrets of my heart. Until then, I just did not have the faith or courage that I needed to go forward. I am not saying that this is best, as one of these prophets rebuked me each time for not having the faith to believe the word of the Lord to me directly, but I thank the Lord for His grace and for helping me in my unbelief.
Even David, who was one of the greatest prophets of all time, often called for other prophets when he wanted to inquire of the Lord. There are times when we are better off to seek Him for ourselves, and there are times when we will need the help of prophets. He will keep us in a place where we need the other members of the body of Christ, but He will also keep us in a place where we must seek Him and know Him for ourselves. Maturity is found with those who know when to do each.
If we have faith in ourselves, our natural talents, we will probably use them. If we have more faith in the obstacles before us than in the talents we have, those obstacles will dictate our course. If we have more faith in our weaknesses than in our gifts, the weaknesses will prevail in our life, and we will be perpetual failures. If we truly believe in God, we will accomplish what He has given us to do. What or who we believe in will determine the quality of what we accomplish. The degree of our faith will determine the quantity of what we accomplish.
Faith is a basic determining force in our life, and it will be a primary determining factor of whether we succeed or fail. Of course, our goal is to believe in God, which means also that we must believe in His ability to accomplish through us all that He has called us to do. As a Christian we not only personally know the Creator, but we have Him living within us. To achieve something that is not only significant, but something that will remain after we depart, is not only a potential that we have, but a command that He has given to us as we read in John 15:4-5:
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.The degree of our fruitfulness is not just found in our gifts, but on how strong our union with the Lord is, how connected we are to the Vine. One of the primary messages of the gospels is that the Lord loves to use the ordinary to do the extraordinary. We see this in the nature of the ones He called to be the leaders of His church. He took those who would probably make almost anyone's list of those least likely to succeed, and He transformed them into those who would turn the world upside down. Our God has not changed. He still delights in using the foolish to confound the wise, and the weak to confound the strong. Therefore, being weak and foolish can be one of our qualifications for being used by God. However, this does not mean that we remain weak or foolish, but that we learn to walk by His strength and His wisdom."I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing."
We will never fulfill our callings if we are focused on our own adequacy. Only the Spirit can beget that which is spirit. However, to focus an our inadequacy can not only be just as debilitating, it can make God mad! When Moses was told of his calling at the burning bush he immediately began to protest that he was not adequate for such a task. The Lord did not commend him for this "humility." It says that "the anger of the Lord burned against Moses" (Exodus 4:14). Such a mentality is not true humility, but the devastating sin of self-centeredness and is actually a profound pride. By this, Moses was inferring that his inadequacy was greater than God's adequacy. God does not call us because of our abilities, or our inabilities, but our availability.
The apostle Paul exhorted: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?" (II Corinthians 13:5). There are a number of questions to this test, but one of the main ones is that if we are truly abiding in Christ, and He in us, we will be bearing "much" fruit.
The only way that we can bear fruit is to abide in Him. We do that by staying focused on Him, not on ourselves. True faith is not a faith in ourselves, or a faith in our faith, but a faith in the Lord and who He is. The only way that we will accomplish our purpose in this life is to keep our focus on. Even Jesus did not focus on Himself when He walked the earth, He kept His attention on the Father. He said that He did not do anything of Himself, but He only did what He saw the Father doing. We must walk the same way. Our fruitfulness will depend on how well we can see Him, and only do what we see Him doing. We can be fruitful only as we abide in Him.
This is an important issue because the Lord said that it was by bearing fruit that we proved to be His disciples. A disciple is a student. Students are supposed to accrue the knowledge and skills of their teachers, and we are called to accrue the knowledge and spiritual gifts of Christ.
Just as the Lord loves to reproduce Himself in us, those who are truly joined to Him will also reproduce in others the ministry that they have been entrusted with. That is why Ephesians 4:11-12 states that the ministries given to the church were given for equipping "the saints, for the work of the ministry" (KJV). The true work of these ministries is not to just do the work themselves, but to equip others to do the ministry. Anyone who is not reproducing their ministry in others in this way is not really fulfilling their calling to ministry.
Does this mean that each person in ministry needs to start their own school of ministry? No. It does mean that one of the most important aspects of the New Covenant ministry must be recovered, which is discipleship. This is still a painful ward to many people, and there have been tragic excesses by some who have tried to implement this truth. Even so, it is unquestionably a very important part of New Testament church life and we will not get to where we are called to be without the proper, balanced application of this important truth.
Go back to[ Part 1].
Copyright: 1996 by Morningstar Publications and Ministries. All rights reserved.This article is published courtesy of "The Morningstar Publications and Ministries". If you would like to peruse more articles from the pen of Rick Joyner, visit Morningstar's website. Click
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