Get out of your country… to a land that I will show you. I will bless you. (Genesis 12:1,2)
The call of God contains both grace and truth.
Truth is the separating instrument. "Get thee out." Grace is the promise. "I
will bless and make a blessing." Man often grasps at the grace, the "I will
bless" of God, and fails to comply with the demand thereof - "Get thee out." Now
this does not only apply in the matter of our salvation in its first steps, but
it comes in new revelations and calls at different times in the Christian life.
The call of God to some fuller and higher acceptance of truth and ministry; of
testimony and witness; of surrender and experience, will undoubtedly come by one
or another of the Divine forms of visitation to such as the Lord wishes to lead
in grace. This will be timed, definite, and challenging. A messenger may come as
out from nowhere; the nowhere of reputation, recognition, worldly fame or honor.
He will deliver a message, only staying long enough to leave its essential
implications with those who hear. Then, having passed on, things can never be
the same for them again.
The "call" has sounded. The crisis has been
precipitated. The issue is between the life which has been with its limitations
known or unrecognized, and that which God offers. But, as usually is the case,
this truth is going to call for a "getting out." Getting out, it may be, of a
certain popularity, a comparative easy going. There may be a risking of
reputation, a loss of prestige, a disfavor among men, a being labeled
"singular," "peculiar," "extreme," "unsafe." It may mean a head-on impact of all
the prejudice, tradition, and disfavor of the religious world. It may involve
exclusion, ostracism, and suspicion. These are the accompaniments of all calls
of God to advance with Him beyond accepted standards. This is the cost of
path-finding for souls. This is the price to be paid for the higher
serviceableness to God and men.