“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Romans 11:29 (NASB)
This is one of my favorite scripture verses, and one of the reasons my license plate reads ROMNS 11. God has called each of us to something good, and regardless of how many times we fail or become distracted on the journey, His calling is still irrevocable, which I find to be a soul inspiring truth.
God has a long history of using arrogant and flawed people to do His will, and reveal His grace to those who need it most. It’s seems like a paradox, but there are many stories in scripture, about people called by God, who were selfish, arrogant or weak, and yet they were used to accomplish God’s will. Despite our human failures, the calling of God is an irrevocable call.
God chose people who we would never choose, if it were based upon their resumes. He chose Moses, a murderer and a fugitive, to deliver 600,000 people, leading them out of the bondage by pleading with the ruler of Egypt, a super power nation in the world at the time. Moses proved to be a leader of courage, faith and patience, despite his past history.
Balaam was a prophet, who sought his own personal advancement. He delivered messages in God’s name, while cursing groups of people, who God never told him to curse. He did it to gain the political approval of men in powerful positions. One day, Balaam was on his way to give another false prophecy, when God sent an angel to stop him on the road. Balaam didn’t see the angel but his donkey did. God gave his donkey the ability to talk back to Balaam, which changed his heart, leading him to prophesy only what God commanded him to say, from that day onward. (Numbers 22:30)
Jonah was an arrogant man, yet he was called by God to go to the city of Nineveh and preach a message of repentance to the people who lived there. Jonah refused to obey God, because he didn’t think the Ninevites were worthy of God’s mercy. So he booked a cruise going in the opposite direction, far from Nineveh. A storm arose and the ship almost sank, and one thing led to another, which involved a whale, until Jonah was tossed onto the shores of Nineveh, the exact place he tried to run away from.
Jonah finally did what God asked him to do, and the Ninevites responded in great numbers to Jonah’s preaching. Even after an outpouring of grace among the Ninevites, Jonah remained angry at God, for showing mercy to a group of people that he absolutely despised.
It’s unbelievable that God used such flawed men to help others find His grace and mercy. The men who God called, all learned their lesson in the end, and lived their lives differently, but God had to use some unlikely means to reveal His will to them.
These examples reveal the grace and mercy of God in His irrevocable calling. He uses imperfect people, and never changes His mind based on our flaws or shortcomings. Even if we wander off the path for a season, it never changes the original calling God has on our lives. His calling is truly irrevocable.
We can also see this with Peter, the rock of His church, who once denied knowing Jesus three times, but it didn’t change the calling that God had for him. Peter, like Moses, Balaam and Jonah, had more than one chance to renew his faith and be restrengthened. God shows us that He works within our flaws and failures, because the calling of God is irrevocable. It is written that where “sin increases, grace abounds all the more.” (Romans 5:20)
What a beautiful God we serve.
Lord, thank you for your faithfulness, even when we are faithless. Guide us in the path and direction that we were born for, and refresh in us, a renewed sense of our calling. Amen
