My calling?

[redwngsfan019]

Ok let me start off by saying this - I've only been saved for a year and a few months, I don't know much at all about the bible, very very little. I just started going to a bible college. But for the past week or so all I can really think about is being a missionary. IDK if this is my calling or what and I've been praying about it a lot. So my question to you all is how do you know what your calling is? Even tho I've only been saved for about a year and know very very little about the bible and all that, would God already be calling me to do something like this? I'm .

It would be cool to be a missionary but I can't see my self doing it just because of how shy / nervous I'am plus the very little knowledge I have atm,

 

[LifebyChrist]

1 Corinthians 13:3 "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

Hi, some things to consider first of all is your motives. You seem to be very kind, just be sure to make sure your calling is about giving God glory and not yourself that is a big thing. Be where God wants you to be, it might not always be where you want to be but God knows you will do much better in something you love.

Jeremiah 18:6 " He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel."

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Matthew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

1 Peter 5:8 " Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children."

Believe me, you will spare yourself much pain and suffering simply by understand the Bible and your promises in God, it is imperative you know this because even the devil used scripture against Jesus and when tempted he responded back in scripture.

Matthew 4:5 "Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

For example if I was the devil, I could say this to you and say throw yourself down because God will protect you. If you did not know it was written do not put the Lord your God to the test how would you be able to respond or fight back? With your own wisdom? You would fail because the devil has been alive alot longer and has experience and without the Holy Spirit you just could not compete. Don't take my word for it though, you could find out for yourself but I am trying to save you from alot of suffering.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 "Test everything. Hold on to the good."

Exception is God

Deuteronomy 6:16 "Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah."

2 Chronicles 7:14 "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Romans 10:17 "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

So before you jump out into the world and be a light to others, put on the armor of God, learn scripture and build a strong foundation so when the raging storms of life come you won't be shredded to pieces and understand your rights and promises in Christ so you know for yourself and so you can explain this to others as well.

Proverbs 19:2 "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

Matthew 7:14 "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

John 16:13 "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

So get the Holy Spirit and build yourself up in scriptures. Look I am not trying to crticize you, I think this is a great calling to aspire for or where God leads you but please take the verse Hosea 4:6 and proverbs 19:2 to heart. Please think things out and be sure of your faith in God, you know times are tough right now, we need to be prepared and you look like a nice guy, you have great potential but you must learn scripture!

Adam and Eve brought death by not following directions. Look what happened to them right after, they covered themselves in fig leaves and hid from God, then lied and blamed eachother. They had kids, one gets jealous because he did not offer a good enough sacrifice and instead of simply

Genesis 4:7 "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

changing he kills his brother. I am not trying to be mean to you, in fact I love you and I really hope the best for you, I have just seen to many eager Christians without enough scripture suffer needlessly and it breaks me to see that I could have stopped it.

God bless you, as for a good starting place, Start out with the book of James or John and you should go over Genesis as well if you want to understand the merits of pro creation, reach each verse in different translations carefully and do not burn yourself out.

Ecclesiastes 12:12 "Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

 

[redwngsfan019]

I understand what your saying and appreciate the response. I don't intend on going out any time soon and trying to be a missionary, or anything like that because I don't know the bible well enough to do that. Thats a big part of the reason why I'm going to a bible college so I can learn more about it.

 

[LifebyChrist]

Oh it's okay do not worry.

Matthew 6:27 "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,"

2 Corinthians 10:5 "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Anyways I am sorry if I was coming off a little harsh, to be honest some things I was concerned about was this.

1. You wanted to be a missionary
2. You wanted to go to Bible school
3. You said "I don't know much at all about the Bible..."

I was afraid of two motives, first I will go with yours (this is just what I think too so I could be a madman!)

1. You want to help out God (This is good)
2. You want to help your conscience (This is good but know salvation rests on faith too)
3. You want to be a light to other people (What were called to do)

Now if I was to go to the church it might be different.

1. They want you to tithe.
2. They want you to pay for missionary trips.
3. They want you to pay for Bible school (tell me what school please, or ask around, make sure it is has a great rep)
4. They want you to convert other people who will do the same thing

So I am just kind of taking a shot in the dark but you really got to be careful about these people who plant this missionary stuff in your head. Look if you knew the gospel better this would be a whole different ball game...im just not sure why you want to do this when you do not even know much scriptures.

Anyways Romans 8:1 is a good verse, no condemnation and the only reason I am like this is because

James 3:1 "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly."

This is why, your just trying to take a spiritual gift and role, (Missionary) of course not one of us is qualified to begin with, only Christ qualifies us.

I will try to give a worldy example.

Lets say we have two people, one is a 5 year old boy, the other is a 20 year old man

Lets say both of them want to become bodybuilders. Well first of all, the 5 year old boy should not even try because he does not have enough testosterone yet and he could stunt his growth and not reach his full potential.

Now the man, lets say he did 200 push ups a day. The problem with this is

1. He is only working his chest.
2. He is not giving his muscles a day to rest
3. He is not applying progression
4. He is not mixing up his routine
5. He does not have a warm up/ stretching plan/ or nutrition plan or cardio

He is not going to get very far, in fact he may just become weaker and weaker everyday until he cannot do 200 push ups a day anymore and he will just quit weaker then when he began.

Now then lets say, he wants to learn right. You want to learn right and you are considering learning from a college which is very good.

This man wants to learn from a personal trainer or a workout class which is very good.

Some colleges might not be as good as others,

Some personal trainers might not be as good as others or give you the results your looking for or charge too much money.

So you could just read your bible alone and self study.

Or someone could just learn how to weightlift by himself.

Or you could just sit in the Church pews and learn from the pastor.

Or you could just go to a workout class and learn from the instructor.

You might be able to ask the pastor for help or prayer afterwards.

You might be able to ask the instructor for help with form or other advice.

So to me it is kind of like you were saying you wanted to be an athlete, (Christian) and you wanted to be a bodybuilder (Missionary) and build up the body of Christ.

The only problem I saw was you did not know alot about the Bible (Routines and workout knowledge) and I just do not want your effort to go to waste because that has happened to me and alot of my friends. I really do wish you good luck in this, maybe im just being a little foolish, but it is good to be prepared!

 

[Heavens]

Bible school, as another poster said, is one way to learn what other men teach.

But I recommend not doing that. Instead, open your Bible and read while praying for knowledge wisdom and understanding. Jesus is faithful to open our eyes to the scriptures and will then be able to show you clearly His Word and what He calls for you to do.
If you aren't sure now, it will be after that.
But if you want to do something to see right now, try mentioning the Name of Jesus to a stranger, ask them to believe upon Him as the Son of God. See how that works. Because that is 100% evangelism, and you don't need anything else!
Consider Jesus' disciples, unlearned fishers... Jesus made them fishers of men. Not some school somewhere.
Blessings in Christ!

 

[emperormar]

First I would ask you to look into the bible to see what it actually says about "a calling."

God's will for all of His followers is for them to make disciples (see Mathew 28:18-20) which is more than telling someone the gospel, it is also teaching others what you know about Christ. Making disciples takes time, it is not accomplished in a one time encounter. His will is also for His people to be built up together in intimate meetings where everyone functions freely and Christ is the head.

God's will is His commands. We are all commanded (called) to do the good things that are laid out in the bible. Those are what is important.

God may never reveal to you a "special calling" in your life. He makes no such promise in scripture to do so. God does however already call all of His followers to obey His commands, which are in the bible, right now. God's "calling" is already revealed to you in the bible!

 

[Wanda Lee]

Jesus was their teacher, their school. He did not send them out to learn on their own. He did not give them Torah and say go learn what to do. He taught them so that they could teach others.

Oops this was a response to Heavens.

 

[Wanda Lee]

Going to Bible School is a good step. Ask a few mature believers if they would pray for you that you would know God's will for you. You could send them a weekly email to let them know what you are struggling with at the moment - and to give praises.

Paul was sent to the desert to learn and grow for three years. If it took him being taught directly by the Holy Spirit, with no outside interference, three years how much longer will it take us to grow?

Just some thoughts. Stay focused on Jesus and pray continually and He will guide you. Turn your self-talk into a conversation with Jesus.

 

[Deserae2011]

I know how you feel as soon as I got saved I thought about doing that but then had all sorts of distraction start and slowly backslid into turning away.. Didnt doubt gods existence just fell away from it. But I am back on track now and sometimes feel that going to missionary school is the way that i would be able to stay on the right track and surround myself with positive and continue to grow... How is school? I am anxious to see all the replys that you get..... Good luck, God Bless

 

[Deserae2011]

1 Corinthians 13:3 "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

Hi, some things to consider first of all is your motives. You seem to be very kind, just be sure to make sure your calling is about giving God glory and not yourself that is a big thing. Be where God wants you to be, it might not always be where you want to be but God knows you will do much better in something you love.

Jeremiah 18:6 " He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel."

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Matthew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

1 Peter 5:8 " Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children."

Believe me, you will spare yourself much pain and suffering simply by understand the Bible and your promises in God, it is imperative you know this because even the devil used scripture against Jesus and when tempted he responded back in scripture.

Matthew 4:5 "Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

For example if I was the devil, I could say this to you and say throw yourself down because God will protect you. If you did not know it was written do not put the Lord your God to the test how would you be able to respond or fight back? With your own wisdom? You would fail because the devil has been alive alot longer and has experience and without the Holy Spirit you just could not compete. Don't take my word for it though, you could find out for yourself but I am trying to save you from alot of suffering.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 "Test everything. Hold on to the good."

Exception is God

Deuteronomy 6:16 "Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah."

2 Chronicles 7:14 "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Romans 10:17 "Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

So before you jump out into the world and be a light to others, put on the armor of God, learn scripture and build a strong foundation so when the raging storms of life come you won't be shredded to pieces and understand your rights and promises in Christ so you know for yourself and so you can explain this to others as well.

Proverbs 19:2 "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."

Matthew 7:14 "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

John 16:13 "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

So get the Holy Spirit and build yourself up in scriptures. Look I am not trying to crticize you, I think this is a great calling to aspire for or where God leads you but please take the verse Hosea 4:6 and proverbs 19:2 to heart. Please think things out and be sure of your faith in God, you know times are tough right now, we need to be prepared and you look like a nice guy, you have great potential but you must learn scripture!

Adam and Eve brought death by not following directions. Look what happened to them right after, they covered themselves in fig leaves and hid from God, then lied and blamed eachother. They had kids, one gets jealous because he did not offer a good enough sacrifice and instead of simply

Genesis 4:7 "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

changing he kills his brother. I am not trying to be mean to you, in fact I love you and I really hope the best for you, I have just seen to many eager Christians without enough scripture suffer needlessly and it breaks me to see that I could have stopped it.

God bless you, as for a good starting place, Start out with the book of James or John and you should go over Genesis as well if you want to understand the merits of pro creation, reach each verse in different translations carefully and do not burn yourself out.

Ecclesiastes 12:12 "Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

Just wanted to say I enjoyed reading your post and it helped me a lot... i have been hard on myself for not studying enough and the bible vs. ecclesiastes 12:12 said a lot to me... again.. thanks God bless

 

[Heavens]

Jesus was their teacher, their school. He did not send them out to learn on their own. He did not give them Torah and say go learn what to do. He taught them so that they could teach others.

Oops this was a response to Heavens.

Hi
It is the same today Wanda. Nothing is changed. Jesus is with us forever, never leaving nor forsaking us. He is dwelling within us by His Spirit, Christ in you, the hope of Glory.
He teaches us, if we let Him. That is why I ask folk to very very seriously reconsider going to a school and receiving a man's teaching of the things of God. God is quite qualified to do that to us Himself, and He will if we desire that.
Only Jesus is qualified to lead us into all truth.
It is ONLY a matter of faith.
Let one's self be called of God.
Let nothing of this world, especially men and their schools, get in the way of hearing that still small voice behind us telling us, "this is the way, walk ye in it"
You know this is true
Blessings

 

[Deserae2011]

Oh it's okay do not worry.

Matthew 6:27 "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"

Romans 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,"

2 Corinthians 10:5 "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Anyways I am sorry if I was coming off a little harsh, to be honest some things I was concerned about was this.

1. You wanted to be a missionary
2. You wanted to go to Bible school
3. You said "I don't know much at all about the Bible..."

I was afraid of two motives, first I will go with yours (this is just what I think too so I could be a madman!)

1. You want to help out God (This is good)
2. You want to help your conscience (This is good but know salvation rests on faith too)
3. You want to be a light to other people (What were called to do)

Now if I was to go to the church it might be different.

1. They want you to tithe.
2. They want you to pay for missionary trips.
3. They want you to pay for Bible school (tell me what school please, or ask around, make sure it is has a great rep)
4. They want you to convert other people who will do the same thing

So I am just kind of taking a shot in the dark but you really got to be careful about these people who plant this missionary stuff in your head. Look if you knew the gospel better this would be a whole different ball game...im just not sure why you want to do this when you do not even know much scriptures.

Anyways Romans 8:1 is a good verse, no condemnation and the only reason I am like this is because

James 3:1 "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly."

This is why, your just trying to take a spiritual gift and role, (Missionary) of course not one of us is qualified to begin with, only Christ qualifies us.

I will try to give a worldy example.

Lets say we have two people, one is a 5 year old boy, the other is a 20 year old man

Lets say both of them want to become bodybuilders. Well first of all, the 5 year old boy should not even try because he does not have enough testosterone yet and he could stunt his growth and not reach his full potential.

Now the man, lets say he did 200 push ups a day. The problem with this is

1. He is only working his chest.
2. He is not giving his muscles a day to rest
3. He is not applying progression
4. He is not mixing up his routine
5. He does not have a warm up/ stretching plan/ or nutrition plan or cardio

He is not going to get very far, in fact he may just become weaker and weaker everyday until he cannot do 200 push ups a day anymore and he will just quit weaker then when he began.

Now then lets say, he wants to learn right. You want to learn right and you are considering learning from a college which is very good.

This man wants to learn from a personal trainer or a workout class which is very good.

Some colleges might not be as good as others,

Some personal trainers might not be as good as others or give you the results your looking for or charge too much money.

So you could just read your bible alone and self study.

Or someone could just learn how to weightlift by himself.

Or you could just sit in the Church pews and learn from the pastor.

Or you could just go to a workout class and learn from the instructor.

You might be able to ask the pastor for help or prayer afterwards.

You might be able to ask the instructor for help with form or other advice.

So to me it is kind of like you were saying you wanted to be an athlete, (Christian) and you wanted to be a bodybuilder (Missionary) and build up the body of Christ.

The only problem I saw was you did not know alot about the Bible (Routines and workout knowledge) and I just do not want your effort to go to waste because that has happened to me and alot of my friends. I really do wish you good luck in this, maybe im just being a little foolish, but it is good to be prepared!

Thank you for this post.. It makes a lot of sense to me... I dont know a lot of scriptures and have not been baptised a year and have a lot to learn and missionary had crossed my mind. But now I dont think that is my calling.... Infact I think this post was meant for me to see. I want to continue learning for my own growth. I dont think that you have to be a missionary to help others with there walk to christ and maybe that is my calling..... just not missionary... Thanks a lot.....

 

[bluegreysky]

Ok let me start off by saying this - I've only been saved for a year and a few months, I don't know much at all about the bible, very very little. I just started going to a bible college. But for the past week or so all I can really think about is being a missionary. IDK if this is my calling or what and I've been praying about it a lot. So my question to you all is how do you know what your calling is? Even tho I've only been saved for about a year and know very very little about the bible and all that, would God already be calling me to do something like this? I'm .

It would be cool to be a missionary but I can't see my self doing it just because of how shy / nervous I'am plus the very little knowledge I have atm,

There is a pretty common epidemic in the Christian community, I've noticed. it's called rushing. It's also an epidemic alot of other places but I noticed it the most at churches. People think they have to hurry and jump into their callings. They have to rush into their relationships, dive headlong into marriages, hurry up and become missionaries or lead a youthgroup or be voted best at something in the church. They think that since they got saved yesterday, it has to happen tommorrow.

It doesn't. Just like any other healthy growth in life, it has to happen slowly, over time, at its own pace, or it will fail and you will burn out.
So, yes, go to college and major in ministry. Take a concentrated track to mission work... but keep your mind open. As you start to get closer to graduation, if there's another career choice that comes to the front and center, take it! also, just because you got a degree in one thing doesn't mean you can't work somewhere that totally unrelated, save money and go back to school for something else! that's what I'm doing...

And your career doesn't have to be faith-related.

It's okay to be a Christian and go to school for journalism or medicine or business and then start a career in that. in fact, perhaps by doing something mainstream like that, you can introduce your faith-based ideas to those fields. I know plenty of people who own a business and exercise christian ideas there.

My boss at my new UPS Store says "praise the lord" everything, but he's not handing out literature in 3rd-world China.. he's packing and shipping right here on the East Coast. his faith and blessings have allowed him to "take over" the whole area... all 3 of the stores and since he's a good and fair boss, everyone loves to work under him and do business with him.

So about the calling... it may never speak to you loudly in your dreams... it might sort of develop and unravel itself over the course of several years, but never seem clear until you reach the finish line.

 

[Sanerive]

Ok let me start off by saying this - I've only been saved for a year and a few months, I don't know much at all about the bible, very very little. I just started going to a bible college. But for the past week or so all I can really think about is being a missionary. IDK if this is my calling or what and I've been praying about it a lot. So my question to you all is how do you know what your calling is? Even tho I've only been saved for about a year and know very very little about the bible and all that, would God already be calling me to do something like this? I'm .

It would be cool to be a missionary but I can't see my self doing it just because of how shy / nervous I'am plus the very little knowledge I have atm,

Hey, what's up? Here's a semi quick story I'm going to leave you with:

I was 18 when I became a Christian. Before then I didn't have a job, I was just a skater who loved to party. I made a decision at 18 that I wanted to leave my lifestyle in Alaska and go to Australia to join a Discipleship Training School. I became a Christian in Australia. 3 months later, I went on a missions trip to India. I probably only knew a small handful of scriptures and looking back there was a lot of theological errors I can only laugh at now... but my missions trip was seriously like the book of Acts!

God moved through me and the other people in my team. Even though I read about Jesus coming back to life and people getting healed in the Bible, 3 months of being a Christian and here I was face to face with this little mute boy in a rural village with no electricity or hot water. The villagers brought there sick out because they 'heard' our message about God wanting to heal them. My first thought 'we're screwed if God doesn't heal this boy'. Guess what happened. They were healed and everyone ran to us wanting to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. One of the translators who was a pastor ended up starting a church there. Thousands of people came to the Lord and home groups, fellowships, churches were started. 5 months into Christianity and I am utterly ruined from a 'normal' life.

This was 10 years ago. The miracles I've seen, the lives transformed, and my intimacy with God has been off the hook! We, humans, are not boring and not meant to have a boring lifestyle (as in your state of mind, not what you do necessarily) or relationship with God. Life with God is adventurous! He puts these prompts in us. He puts the adventure in us.

The whole 'Christianese' term for missionary is vastly misunderstood and mostly confused with an apostle. You don't have to go overseas or in some gnarly socially impoverished place to be a missionary. It's not an area of office or anointing like an apostle. It just means 'one sent' in the sense of divine calling. So really, anyone with a heartbeat has a calling. Everyone has 'a mission'. If you have a job or are in school or an area of social service, you better be confident that you are fulfilling your 'mission' in those areas. Now the problem is people don't know how to perform the outworking of their calling. Agh- this has turned long. Sorry, I'll have to get back to you with some more later.

I hope this was encouraging for you. Let me know if you'd like to hear more and I can share some biblical principles and more stories that have helped me.

God bless you mate

 

[kingston123]

i like your post you do good effort to make it more valuable.
thanks for sharing.

 

[tessa04]

Redwingsfan,
If you want to know what God's will is, my suggestion is this:

pray, make a decision and go for it.

If you make the wrong decision, and God's timing isn't right yet, then he will let you know. So then you stop that and move to something else.

None of us here can tell you what God is directing you to do. We can only speak what we have learned from out of our own experiences and those we know.

But don't forget that mission starts with those we are already in contact with and continues with those we have yet to meet.