September 30, 2009 THE COMMISSION OF THE CALL

Colossians 1:24 - I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church.

For years I’ve admired Paul’s strength and found myself in awe of the joy with which Paul regarded his suffering. He never cursed his captors or bemoaned the miseries of prison; he counted those as the cost of his call – a price he gladly paid to share the gospel. But I think I’ve had it wrong all these years: it isn’t Paul’s strength, but rather the power of God’s peace that deserves our attention. Paul has joy in spite of his misery not because he’s a supernatural tough-guy, but because he was willing to lay out all he was at the feet of the Savior and submit completely to the lordship of Christ. Whatever Jesus called him to, there he was, with no thought to his comfort or safety – Paul was “all in” for the kingdom. Nothing else mattered. How do I come to that point?

The following is probably one of my most favorite bits of Chambers insight – not because it’s easy (quite the opposite) but because it is so obviously true.
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way! But when He uses someone whom we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, and makes those the crushers, we object. We must never choose the scene of our own martyrdom. If we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I love the image of our being broken bread and poured-out wine. Chambers uses it several times throughout this year-long devotional and I find it a powerful metaphor for what we are called to in Christ. While I love the metaphor, I don’t particularly love the experience. How true it is that sometimes God uses unsavory people and objectionable circumstances to shape us to His will. Our pride arises and we want to protest our situation – we want to demand that God do things a different way. But it is this pride that has to go, and if we truly want to be wine poured for God’s purpose, we have to learn the wisdom of God’s ways and be willing to be crushed by the fingers of His choosing.

We can refuse the “crushing.” We can walk away. We can say “I’m not doing that”, “I’m not going there”, “I’m not saying that”, “I’m not willing to love them.” We have the freedom to do what we like, and I’ve exercised that freedom most of my life. But I’ve come to a point now where I’m recognizing that I want more than to just “squeeze into the kingdom” – when I stand before God on judgment day, I want to know that I did what he had for me to do and nothing less. We’ve all seen the game show where the guy can keep his $1000 or trade it for whatever is behind door #3. The audience knows that behind door #3 is a million dollars, but the contestant has no idea. Fearful of the possibility of losing his $1000, he walks away – and regrets that choice for the rest of his life. For us as believers, the real stakes aren’t monetary, but something far greater. Do we want to stand before God only to discover that we missed the opportunity to fulfill the very purpose for which we were created just because we wanted to keep our measly $1000 in tact? What are we so afraid of losing that we’ll risk our eternal purpose to keep it? A lifestyle? A relationship? What is worth that?

Paul could have walked away from his call, but he allowed himself to be crushed for the gospel, and the wine produced from that crushing changed the world – literally. Paul identified fully with Christ and that identification eclipsed every other thing.