In this piece, we are looking at ‘Realizing why you are raised: Accepting your calling’. The reason why it's important for us to accept our calling is when we realize why we are being raised up by God. In this piece, it is more of a case study teaching. And we're going to be looking at examples in the Scripture that would help us realize why we are raised and accept our calling.

 

 

It's important for us to understand that when God calls men, the calling of God on men is to raise them. And when God raise men, it is for a specific purpose; it is for a specific agenda; it is for a specific assignment. So, we're going to start by looking at how God raised Abraham; this is going to be our first case study. So, we'll look at that in Genesis chapter 12. We're familiar with that Scripture. But we're just going to go over it again in this piece.

 

 

Genesis chapter 12, we'll read verse 1 to 4. And look at how God raised Abraham: “Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you”. When we read that one, we will think that the reason why God raised Abraham is to make him a landlord; to make him an owner of a piece of land, or to make him one that possesses lands. Maybe He wants to make him one of the greatest real estate gurus on the earth. But let's read further because God is just introducing the matter here. He said, “I will make you,” because that's where we should focus on. The making of God is the raising of God.

 

Now, I want us to pay a bit of attention to the story of Abraham, there are many things that God will give you as a believer. What God gives you as a believer, is not what God wants to make you; that is not why you are raised. So, for example, as a believer, God gives you children, biological children, male and female, you would want to say, okay, maybe God has called you to be a father, or God has called you to be a mother. That's not all. What God is making of you, gives you an idea of who God is raising you to be. So, God can give you money, that money is not the end in itself. The children, they are not the end in itself. They are just means.

 

So, for example, God said to Abraham, He said, “To a land that I will show you,” but the crux of the matter about His raising is making. He said, “I will make you a great nation”. And that should catch our attention. “I will make you,” whenever God is dealing with you, as a believer, when God says, “I will make you,” it is the making of God, that is the raising of God. Whatever God is making you to be is a pointer to who He is raising you to be. So, if God said, I will make you a threshing instrument with sharp teeth then God is raising you as a battle axe in His hands. So, it is the making of God that believers should actually pay attention to and not just the giving of God. God gives to His children lavishly. He said, “I've given you all things that pertain to life and to godliness,” but is that your calling? Your calling is closely tied to your making in the kingdom.

 

 

So, He said, “I will make you a great nation. I will bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”. Verse 4: “So Abram departed, as the Lord has spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abraham was 75 years old, when he departed from Haran”.

 

 

Now, why did God raise Abraham? I'm sure, we're all believers, let me work on that assumption in this piece. And I'm sure we have read the story of Abraham, over and over again. At a point, God changed his name from Abram to Abraham, to reflect His dealings with him. He said, “You will no longer be called Abram, you will be called Abraham, because you will become the father of many nations”. And if you see the dealings of God at some point, God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, right? And God said, “I will not do this thing without telling my friend Abraham. For surely Abraham shall become,” is that not what God said? For surely Abraham shall become a great nation.

 

 

So, what was the agenda of God? The agenda of God was to raise from Abraham a nation. Abraham was raised not just to be a wealthy man, or just to receive a promised land. It is not just because of the promised land that He was raised. Abraham was raised to raise a great nation. And in that we see that the dealings of God were intentional with Abraham. God did not miss it with Abraham. Abraham, if you go through and read, we can take our time and go back and read the dealings of God with Abraham. It reflected the agenda of God concerning his life.

 

 

So, as believers, I want us to start looking at it carefully. What has God’s dealings with you been like? Have you been paying attention to the giving of God or the making of God?

 

 

The Making of God is usually the pointer to what we have been raised to become or to do for Him. So, we saw from the example of Abraham, that God was going to birth a nation through Israel, and God needed a man to start that walk; to pioneer that walk; to pioneer that assignment. And he accepted it. If you go to verse 4, “So Abraham departed”. He accepted that calling. So as believers, it is important we realize why we have been raised? There are many things we celebrate in our lives, they are not the end in itself, they are just means to the end.

 

 

There are so many things God is working out around us; there are many things God is working in us, let's not glorify or tabernacle with those things, we should rather, because we should know by now that God is the only wise God. When God is doing things, He said in Isaiah chapter 55, He said, “My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts, as the heavens are high above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”.

 

So, He has high ways; He has high thoughts. So, when God is speaking to us about things, don't think what He wants or is thinking about your life is one small thing or mediocre thing, No. God’s agenda is usually big, bigger than what our human understanding can comprehend. And that's why the Holy Spirit is opening our eyes again to realize why we have been raised.

The second example, we're going to look at the life of Moses, there are certain things we're going to also glean from there, Exodus chapter 3. In Exodus chapter 3, we will read verses 7 to 10. We're looking at the life of Moses, how God raised Moses.

 

 

“And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their ^[a]sorrows. ⁸ So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. ⁹ Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

 

 

Why was Moses raised up? See the conversation that God was having with Moses, God raised Moses for deliverance. God raised Moses for the deliverance of the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. So, you will see the conversation that God was having with him. It was conversation around oppression. And if we look at the life of Moses, Moses was born an Israelite. And there was a pharaoh at that time that said, “All the young boys that were born by Hebrew women should be killed”. And the mother giving birth to this child created a mystery: this child is beautiful; I must not lose this child. And she put the child in the basket and put the child in the river, and the child went on. And Pharaoh's daughter saw this beautiful child and took him out of the water. So, Moses himself, to fulfill his assignment needed to be delivered.

 

 

Moses was on the water, he could have been drowned, and crocodile would have eaten him up, but God preserved him because his deliverance was going to lead to the deliverance of the people of God. So, are we looking at our lives, and see what we can glean from how God raised Moses? There are things that happened when you were born. There were things that took place in your journey. Those things that God allowed to happen to you are types and shadow of what your assignment will be like in the future. There are some people that when they were younger, they heard prophecies, prophesies had been told concerning them.

 

 

In the future, the Lord is going to use this child; in the future, God is going to make this child wealthy. In the future, this child will serve kings; in the future, prophecies have gone ahead. Things have happened or occurrences have happened. Maybe when you had your child, somebody testified immediately this child was born, a stronghold that you have been dealing with got broken, those things are not accidental, they are intentional, because that's how God works. For Moses, he was delivered. And that's why they gave him Moses, he was delivered out of water. And that's why God didn't have a reason to change his name because his name already reflected his purpose.

 

 

Now, Moses was raised up if you see the conversation that God had with him, from verse 7 to verse 10, you will see that God is saying, this is your marching order. Something has happened. A set of people have cried out to me, He said, “I know their sorrows”. He said, “I have heard their cry”. There is a generation crying to God and God is hearing their cry. There is a set of people that you have never met in your life. You have never had dealings with them. You only hear about them. But there is a yearning in your spirit, which you can’t explain because that's what happened to Moses. Moses was in the house of Pharaoh, he was enjoying.

 

 

If something had happened to Ramsay, he could have become the next Pharaoh. He was that close to the throne. And there was a dissatisfaction in him. I don't know, as a believer, there is a dissatisfaction in you, you didn't create it. It is not something that you can control; there is just a dissatisfaction in you about some issues. When you see prostitutes on the street, there is a dissatisfaction in you, is not everybody that gets that dissatisfaction.

 

 

So, we must realize why we are raised. These are pointers to why we were raised. For some people, when they see pastor preaching and they make a mistake, they don't even know they just made a mistake. But you always realize there is a mistake. There's always something in you that opens up when there is an error in service, there is an error in leadership, those things are not something you will just throw away; you must realize why you are raised and realizing why you are raised is to accept your calling. Moses became dissatisfied about the oppression of the children of Israel, that he killed an Egyptian; wrong strategy.

 

 

He had a calling but he did have the strategy. Many of us were dissatisfied, it is not about starting an NGO, there is how to go about it. You need to go to the One that has put the burden in you for the strategy to use. Moses killed someone in the plan of fulfilling his assignment; in fulfilling his calling. And he ran away. He could not stay; he ran out of Egypt, not knowing that he was only running a way for a process that will prepare him to return. And this is where he started. God said that you are going back, Moses. “I have had the cry of my people.” See what He said to him in verse 10: “Come now,” it is now time. “Come now therefore, I will...” The first one you did, you sent yourself, this time I will send you.

 

 

I don't know the things you have been doing as a believer that you have been sending yourself, this is time to understand and realize why you are raised. It is God that must send you. You can't send yourself. If you send yourself, you will use the wrong strategy. If you send yourself, you will do the wrong things. He said, “I will send you to Pharaoh,” you will not go and be killing taskmasters, I will send you to the leader. I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt, clear. And there was a lot of back and forth with Moses, Moses felt incompetent. Moses was afraid of his past; Moses was still held back by the limitations of his background where he was coming from. And God continue to assure him, until he went.

 

 

In fact, the way God was conversing with him, He said, “I will make you as a god to Pharaoh”. So, when you realize why you are raised, you will accept your calling. When Moses realized why he was raised, he accepted his calling, he accepted the challenge.

 

Another case study we're going to look at is Esther. We will read Esther chapter 2, then we'll read Esther chapter 4. Esther chapter 2 and verse 7 to 9. It says;

 

“And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely and beautiful. When her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. ⁸ So it was, when the king’s command and decree were heard, and when many young women were gathered at Shushan the citadel, under the custody of Hegai, that Esther also was taken to the king’s palace, into the care of Hegai the custodian of the women. ⁹ Now the young woman pleased him, and she obtained his favor; so he readily gave beauty preparations to her, besides ^[j]her allowance. Then seven choice maidservants were provided for her from the king’s palace, and he moved her and her maidservants to the best place in the house of the women”.

 

 

Now, the reason why I read it to verse 9 is so that we understand something. This was an orphan, no father, and no mother. She was raised by an uncle, as a believer, I don't know why you are saying God, why me? God, why didn’t I grow under the supervision of my own parents? Why am I living with somebody else? Why am I raised by somebody else? God has an agenda, there is a reason why you are raised like that. And you must realize it.

 

 

Imagine if the father and mother of Esther did not die, it is possible that she will not even be in Shushan at the time. We don't know the personality of Esther's father, and we don't know the personality of Esther's mother. Imagine if they were alive, she would not have entered the palace. I said this, because there will be so much love; this king that sent out his wife one day and one night, they wouldn’t have known what could happen to Esther who was not an indigene of his jurisdiction or his territory. They could have withdrawn Esther. They could have overprotected Esther. They could have in love shielded Esther away from her destiny.

 

 

And God had to take them out of the picture. She was raised by Mordecai. They were values that God saw in Mordecai that Esther needed to have. There were things that God saw in Mordecai that would facilitate Esther’s destiny. Because in the picture of things for the deliverance of the Jews, Mordecai and Esther have a critical role to play. Hallelujah!

 

 

Why did God raise Esther?

Esther chapter 4 verse 14. I just gave us that as a little background to see where Esther was coming from. “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place.” So why was Esther raised by God? For the relief and deliverance of the Jews. So, God was using Mordecai to speak to Esther’s spirit. “For if you remain completely silent,” if you choose to ignore what is going on, if you choose to look the other way, and continue to enjoy your affluence, you are not beautiful for nothing. You are not just a pretty face in the palace. God has put you there for influence.

 

 

God has put you there as a solution. God has raised you as a voice so you cannot be silent. He said, “If you are completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish yet who knows whether you, beautiful Esther, Queen Esther, who knows whether God has raised you for such a time as this?”

 

 

In destiny, there's something called such a time as this; in the life of a nation, there's something called such a time as this; in the lifetime of a generation, there's something called such a time as this. Why are you raised by God? Esther was not just raised as a beautiful woman; the beauty God gave her was not the end in itself. It was a means to an end. That you can speak eloquently. That is not the end in itself. It's not for you to be duping people and be doing 419. It is for a purpose.

 

 

Beautiful daughter of God, your beauty is for a purpose. God did not just give her beauty, if you go back to that Esther chapter 2, God gave her favour. You look at your life and you just know that you have favour. When you enter a space, people just favour you, you don't know why. Do not say, I don’t even know why people just like me. Go and ask God, “Lord, why do I enjoy favour?” “Lord, open my eyes to see and know why I enjoy favour.” It's not just for our self-aggrandizement, there is a purpose.

 

 

There is an occasion calling out for your destiny. There is a time waiting for your manifestation. There's a necessity that has been placed on your life. There is a necessity that have been placed on my life. That's why Apostle Paul said, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel, necessity is laid upon me”. There is something about you, it is not just for you to give birth to children; wake up in the morning and sleep at night. There is an occasion that you must arise to. There must be time ticking quickly that you must respond to. Destiny is calling. We must identify it. We must identify the occasion; we must identify the time in which we must manifest.

 

 

Lastly, we're going to look at our ultimate model. Our ultimate case study; our Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to see two Scriptures: we will first see 1 John chapter 3 verse 8. We're looking at how God raised Jesus. “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose,” did we see it? For this purpose [for this occasion, for this responsibility, for this assignment] the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” As simple as this verse is, it is loaded. And I wish to make an attempt with the help of the Holy Spirit to help us understand it. “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” So, there is something that the devil has done, it is called sin.

 

 

God did not create sin. God did not manufacture sin. It is the doing of the devil. The sin has now become a problem. It had become an inherent nature, that has corrupted the people of God, the corruption has gone so deep, if you go back to Isaiah, and you read how God was speaking to Isaiah about nations, the corruption of nations, the different things that God was speaking about the sin of nations, He was speaking about different countries, cities, in different continents of the world. And God was speaking, you see, God was giving a global picture of how corruption is endemic, how sin is entrenched in the fabric of mankind. And that was a serious global pandemic — Sin. And God needed to solve that problem.

 

 

So, the Bible says, “For this purpose, what is the purpose? The purpose was to take out sin. The purpose was to excommunicate from the people of God. The purpose was to destroy, undo what was done by the devil. That's what the Bible says, “For the devil has sinned from the beginning.” So, he manufactures sin. “For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested,” so when Jesus was healing the sick; when Jesus was raising the dead, when Jesus was telling Peter to go and take money from the mouth of the fish, when Jesus was multiplying five loaves of bread and two fishes, it is ultimately to cumulate into the ultimate reason why He came. His purpose was not just to raise a few dead people. His purpose was not just to feed some 5000 people. His purpose was not just to heal some people's malaria and open the eyes of some few blind people.

 

 

The purpose of Jesus was restoration; to undo what the devil has done. Why Jesus was raised up by God was to undo the doings of the devil. And the Bible says, “For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He may destroy,” that destroy is to undo. So, the devil did sin, then Jesus did righteousness. The devil gave sin to the world and Jesus gave grace; He gave life. The devil gave death and Jesus gave life; He came to undo.

 

 

So, whatever you see that the devil is parading around, Jesus is the solution. The devil’s poison has an antidote in Jesus. That's why when you have a relative that is oppressed by the devil, it is not to take the person to psychotic home, the consultant that is required in that situation is Jesus because His assignment is that He may destroy the works, that He may dissolve, that He may loosen, and you will see that when the prophecy was given about Jesus, the Bible says, “To loosen the bonds of wickedness”. He has come to comfort those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes”. You will see that His assignment is to do, to destroy, to dissolve. He has come to make sure that whatever the devil has done to mankind is undone.

 

 

See Matthew chapter 1 verse 21, when He was going to be named, “And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. For He will save His people from their sins,” you shall call His name, Jesus the Lord that saves: the Lord our salvation. “For He will save His people,” He will save. Praise the Lord.

 

So, as believers, today, we must realize why we are being raised; accept your calling. Look at your life, see the things you have gleaned from Abraham, from the life of Moses, from the life of Esther, and ultimately our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is a reason why you have been raised. There is something God has raised you to do. Your name, if it is given in God is not an accident. And that's why often time as believers, when you first come to God and God start dealing with you, one of the things God will quickly do when your name is not in alignment with his will is to change your name.

 

 

In the future of Jacob, he was not Jacob in the will of God. God did not have a supplanting destiny for him. So, he changed his name from Jacob to Israel: Prince with God. Because the nation that he will become, will be a choice nation, the heir of God and a similitude of what Christ is. Heir of God, and that's why the church are joint heirs with Christ, because we're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. So, God created a physical nation to give us an example of what a spiritual nation will look like.

 

Believers, we must realize why we are raised. The devil is afraid of what that destiny looks like. The devil is afraid and that's why we must take our place.

 

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Lara Gboyega Adedeji!

Feel free to share your thoughts or testimony in the comment box below. I promise to respond to them as soon as possible!