Evening, October 11

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"Whom he did predestinate, them he also called."

  Romans 8:30

   In the second epistle to Timothy, first chapter, and ninth verse, are
   these words--"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling."
   Now, here is a touchstone by which we may try 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 conducts us to Christ alone for salvation, but it afterwards purges
   us from dead works to serve the living and true God. As he that hath
   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 desire to be rid of it; Lord, help me to be
   holy." Is this the panting of thy heart? Is this the tenor of thy life
   towards God, and his divine will? Again, in Philippians, 3:13, 14, we
   are told of "The high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Is then your
   calling a high calling? Has it ennobled your heart, and set it upon
   heavenly things? Has it elevated your hopes, your tastes, your desires?
   Has it upraised the constant tenor of your life, so that you spend it
   with God and for God? Another test we find in Hebrews 3:1--"Partakers
   of the heavenly calling." Heavenly calling means a call from heaven. If
   man alone call thee, thou art uncalled. Is thy calling of God? Is it a
   call to heaven as well as from heaven? Unless thou art a stranger here,
   and heaven thy home, thou hast not been called with a heavenly calling;
   for those who have been so called, declare that they look for a city
   which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and they
   themselves are strangers and pilgrims upon the earth. Is thy calling
   thus holy, high, heavenly? Then, beloved, thou hast been called of God,
   for such is the calling wherewith God doth call his people.