THE HEAVENLY CALLING (Part 1)
Most of the believers in the body of Christ have not understood what is heavenly calling? They think that whenever the Bible talks of calling it means the ministerial offices like the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers only. So, they choose for themselves and somehow think that they are called for one of these offices. They give themselves a title like a pastor without proving whether they are called in that office or not; however, when the Bible talks of the heavenly calling then it is talking about something different altogether.
It is talking of bringing heaven on the earth, experiencing and enjoying what God has in store for us here, on earth while we are alive in our physical bodies.
As in Hebrews 3:1 “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.”
There are many people who would read through the verse and overlook it. The reason is the second word in the verse i.e. ‘holy’, because of which they would assume and conclude that they are not holy and the rest of the verse would be useless for them as they do not fulfill the criteria of becoming holy.
If there is something in the body of Christ that has caused confusion, then it is the teaching on holiness; as people have not understood what holiness is all about. The Greek word for ‘holiness’ is ‘hagious’, which has three meanings. Firstly, it means ‘you are separated from common things’. Secondly, ‘you are separated from common usage’.And thirdly, ‘holiness means God has brought us into a special relationship with himself, and for his purpose, he has given us a special place.’ Another very important thing to be noticed is that the world wants to attain holiness through their works, but through Christ, we are already there in the place of holiness.
That is why, 1 Corinthians 1:30 says,“…because of him you are in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.”
Therefore, Christ is God’s wisdom for us. In other words, he is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. So in Christ, we are absolutely holy. Our holiness has nothing to do with what we do or what wedo not. Does that mean that can we go on sinning? Absolutely not! We are dead to sin, how can we live in sin any longer? (Romans 6:1–2) If you want to know more about this subject then refer to my previous book ‘Trinity’.
Returning to Hebrews 3:1 where we are called to share in the heavenly calling with Jesus Christ. Then let us first see the meaning of the word ‘share’ which in Greek is ‘metachos’, ‘meta’ meaning ‘with’ and ‘echo’ has four meanings which are ‘to have’, ‘to hold’, ‘to keep’ and ‘to be’. When we put these words together it becomes ‘with to have’, ‘ ‘with to hold’, ‘with to keep’ and ‘with to be’. Now, let me explain what sharing means in a simple way.
Even though we have a heavenly calling, Christ is the sole architect and very existence of the heavenly calling. In other words, we cannot enter into this heavenly calling without him. When he is with us, we have the heavenly calling and not only we have it but we would also be able to hold it when he is with us. Not only we would be able to hold it but also we would also be able to keep it when he is with us. Not only we will be able to keep it but also we will become that when he is with us.
Referred from The Book “Living In Glory Without Sickness” Written by Dr. Winston Joseph. Click the Link Below to Purchase this Book From Amazon:
