{"id":468983,"date":"2025-02-03T02:20:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T20:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.com\/?p=468983"},"modified":"2025-02-03T02:20:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T20:50:28","slug":"the-demand-of-the-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/the-demand-of-the-call\/","title":{"rendered":"The Demand of the Call"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-6d98818b5d5498edb746f093303c2776 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world. \u20141 Corinthians 4:13<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paul\u2019s words here are not an exaggeration. If they are not true for us, it\u2019s because we refuse to allow ourselves to become garbage. Our preference for the finer things of the world, and for our own place among them, prevents us from being \u201cset apart for the gospel\u201d in the way Paul describes (Romans 1:1). When he writes of using his own flesh to \u201cfill up . . . what is still lacking in regard to Christ\u2019s afflictions,\u201d he means being willing to put himself, in person, anywhere Christ\u2019s gospel is needed (Colossians 1:24).<br>\u201cDo not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening\u201d (1 Peter 4:12). If we do find the things we encounter strange, it\u2019s because we\u2019re cowardly and pretentious. We allow our worldly affinities and aspirations to keep us out of the muck: \u201cI won\u2019t stoop,\u201d we say. \u201cI won\u2019t bend.\u201d God won\u2019t force us. If we want, we can refuse to let Jesus count us as one of his servants.<br>A servant of Jesus is someone who is willing to become a martyr for the gospel. Martyrdom is a calling that lies beyond mere morality. When a merely moral man or woman comes in contact with baseness and immorality and treachery, they instinctively recoil. What they\u2019ve seen is so desperately offensive to their sense of human goodness that their heart shuts up in despair.<br>But the marvel of the redemptive reality of God is that his love is bottomless: the worst and vilest can never exhaust it. Paul doesn\u2019t say that God set him apart in order to make him a shining example. It was, Paul writes, \u201cto reveal his Son in me\u201d (Galatians 1:16).<br>By Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world. \u20141 Corinthians 4:13 Paul\u2019s words here are not an exaggeration. If they are not true for us, it\u2019s because we refuse to allow ourselves to become garbage. Our preference for the finer things of the world, and for our own place among [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[686],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-daily-devotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}