The Anatomy Of A Calling, Part 3- Overcoming Covetousness.

 

Judas was among the called. The master found him and called him. Judas dropped all he was doing and followed the master. We are not told what his profession was or else we would vilify all who belong to that profession. But it wasn’t his profession that was the issue. It was his soul.

Judas walked with The Lord but nothing he heard or saw in the master’s ministry made an impact on his life. He saw what the Lord Jesus was capable of; his power to heal, save and deliver, but it made zero impact on him. He was there when blind Bartemaeus cried out to The Lord for mercy and witnessed The Lord restore his sight. He followed The Lord on his way to the centurion’s house. The Lord stopped on the road and said someone had touched him. A woman ran out of the crowd and confessed that she had been sick for several years but when she touched the hem of his garment, she was instantly healed. But none of these miracles touched his heart in any way. No wonder Jesus cursed the great cities which saw his miracles yet remained antithetical to the gospel. Unless the Holy Spirit moves miracles in themselves cannot turn a hardened heart to Jesus.

Judas was in the ministry with Jesus but he was in it for what he could use the Master to get. He was in the ministry to enrich himself. He used his title as ‘an apostle of Jesus’ to scam as much money as he could from the multitudes. When Jesus sent them out to go and heal the sick in Luke 9, Judas probably used the opportunity to ‘raise some funds for the ministry.’ He wasn’t thinking about what to do to expand the kingdom but all he wanted was what he could use Jesus and the kingdom to accomplish for himself.

The Making of an Ishmael.

When God called Abram to leave his people, his nation and embark on an adventure, he had no idea what God was about to do with his life.

Genesis 12:1-4
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him:and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

We are not told for how long God spoke to Abram before he obeyed the direction and will of God for his life. God said in essence, “Until you leave Haran I cannot use you or bless you the way I want to.” Abram was 75 years old when he finally obeyed the call of God and departed from Haran taking his wife and his nephew along with him.
After some years of sojourning in the nations God led him through, God blessed Abram with gold and material things. In fact he was so rich that Lot his nephew who went along with him also became rich and this eventually caused strife between them and Lot moved away from Abram and pitched his tent towards sodom.

But Abram had no child. After ten years of Abram’s adventure with God he became tired of waiting for the promised child. God had promised him that his wife would give birth to a child and that child would give birth to kings and nations, but it hadn’t yet happened and Abram was getting old. Abram was desperate. He prayed and cried out to God to make the child of Eliezer his heir, but God said no. God told him in Genesis 15:1-5, that “Your heir will come out of your own loins.” The bible says that Abram believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.

However Sarai his wife didn’t believe in all the spiritual nonsense her husband was talking about. She had two problems. First she was barren and secondly she had gone beyond menopause and it was virtually impossible for her to conceive and have a baby. Sarai decided to take matters into her own hands. She encouraged her husband to take Hagar her Egyptian maid as a wife so that he could have a heir from his own loins.