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Morning and Evening

October 11, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Whom He did predestinate, them He also called." — Romans 8:30 · KJV

In the second letter to Timothy, chapter one, verse nine, are these words: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling." Here is a touchstone by which we may test our calling. It is "an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace." This calling forbids all trust in our own doings and leads us to Christ alone for salvation; but afterward it purges us from dead works to serve the living and true God. As He who called you is holy, so must you be holy. If you are living in sin, you are not called; but if you are truly Christ's, you can say, "Nothing pains me so much as sin; I long to be rid of it; Lord, help me to be holy." Is this the panting of your heart? Is this the tenor of your life toward God and His divine will? Again, in Philippians we are told of "the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Is your calling, then, a high calling? Has it ennobled your heart and set it on heavenly things? Has it lifted your hopes, your tastes, your desires? Has it raised the whole tenor of your life, so that you spend it with God and for God? Another test we find in Hebrews: "partakers of the heavenly calling." A heavenly calling means a call from heaven. If man alone calls you, you are uncalled. Is your calling from God? Is it a call to heaven, as well as from heaven? Unless you are a stranger here, and heaven is your home, you have not been called with a heavenly calling; for those so called declare that they look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and they themselves are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Is your calling thus holy, high, heavenly? Then, beloved, you have been called of God, for such is the calling with which God calls His people.