Many Are Called But Few Are Ready

Introduction Missing The Mark Through Hitting a Mark

And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled…if you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel…( Colossians 1:21 & 23)

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).

The Enemy Doesn’t Want to Take Our Hope, He Wants to Move It
Paul makes it clear in Colossians 1:23 that we will be saved only if “We continue in the faith, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel.” We can’t overlook the weightiness of that statement. We will be saved only if we don’t allow our trials, the cares of this world, and Satan’s deceptions to move us away from the original hope that the gospel was once founded upon.

The enemy, in order to defeat us, doesn’t necessarily have to take our hope; he just needs to move our hope! There are many good intentioned believers, who at one point had a genuine desire to walk with God, who have allowed the enemy through deception and temptation, to move their hope. As a result, many saints are leading lives that have left their soul hanging in the balance, and they’re not the least bit conscious of it! Why? Because they still have hope, but what they don’t realize is, the enemy has moved their hope from the first faith of Christ.

One thing we can never overlook is the fact that faith and hope are inseparable. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). Faith is hopes substance. If my hope is moved, so is my faith. When my hope is relocated, where my faith had been taking me is relocated as well.

Peter sheds light on why having relocated faith is so dangerous when he says, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul (1 Peter 1:9). Our salvation is at the end of our faith. If my faith and hope isn’t directed where Jesus has ordained for it to be directed, I can’t enter into the place he has ordained my hope and faith to bring me into, which is salvation! That’s why the Holy Ghost warns the saints in to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3). We are made partakers of Christ, only if we hold the beginning of our confidence, steadfast until the end (Heb. 3:14).

Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). In other words, faith is the fruit of our hope. Our faith can only be activated in the direction that our hope points it. In short, hope is the gun, and faith is the bullets. The bullets can only go in the direction that you aim the gun. I can have a real gun (hope), and real bullets (faith), and actually shoot my gun, and hit the target I’m aiming for, but if it’s the wrong target, it matters not how many times I hit it. The enemy has switched the target that the saints are supposed to be aiming for! Many believers are hitting breakthrough’s, hitting blessings, hitting an increase in stuff, but not hitting the original hope of the gospel.

So in the act of hitting all those things, we’re actually committing sin. How? Sin is missing the mark. The enemy gets us to miss the mark, by giving us another mark that’s easier to hit! There are many people in the body that are missing the mark by hitting a mark not given to them by God. What better way for the enemy to get us to miss the mark, than by giving us a different mark to hit, that’s much simpler target to hit than God’s original mark?

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philipp. 3:13-14). The mark isn’t a thing, personal goals, or success, the mark is a calling! We are called to press toward the mark…of the high calling of God. Without answering your call, you can’t hit the mark! Until we truly answer the call of God, which is to Come out from among unbelievers…not touching their filthy things, [so that] God will welcome us. He will be our Father, and we will be His sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:17 NLT).

Many are called, but few are ready, because we’re picking up a phone that God isn’t calling us on! We’re aiming at a mark that God hasn’t set for us to aim at! Our ultimate hope in the Gospel, isn’t the ultimate hope much of the church is living for.

My prayer is that this book equips you as a believer to discern and follow the true biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. That you gain the necessary understanding to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). May the Lord build you up in the inner man, that you may be found faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of a faithless generation. Amen.