The Call To Preach
As a seventeen year old boy, I knew the Lord was showing me what he wanted me to do. My Pastor and other spiritual leaders in my life would often say, “the Lord’s called you to be a preacher”. I considered that to be vain speaking until one Saturday morning the Lord spoke to me. I remember waking up with 1 Corinthians 15:58 etched in my mind. Never before had I memorized this verse, I had only read it a couple times and heard it. However for some reason this verse was stuck in my mind. You see I wanted to be a businessman like my dad, to live my life the way I chose. Being a preacher was not on my to do list. There was however this verse stuck in my head that I could not get rid of. So I went to my preacher and asked him what it meant. He said to me, “be faithful in your labor for the Lord for a heavenly reward awaits you, unlike our earthly labor which yields earthly rewards which is vanity”.
Well after that experience I concluded that the Lord was asking me to stay faithful in the church and support my Pastor as a deacon and teacher. Deep down in my heart I knew there was something greater, but as long as no one knew what was in there they could not hold me accountable. Well so I thought. An old time preacher come visiting one day and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “God’s gonna use you young man, don’t go chasing after the world”.
So I went back to my bible and read 1 Cor 15:58, and the word “always” popped out. “….be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord….” I knew what always meant, it didn’t mean sometimes, part-time or pass-time. It meant “always”.
There was only one vocation that would allow me to do that, and that was to be a preacher of God’s word, to proclaim the Gospel in season and out of season.
“Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the lord, forasmusch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” 1 Cor 15:58. Call confirmed.
By God’s Grace
Martin Chilando
