Call to be Saved

Posted by John Goodway on Feb 1, 2011 in Joel 2:32 | 1 comment

‘And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’ Joel 2:32 (NIV)—

Here we have one of the greatest verses in the Bible – and it is awesome.

This Scripture says, “and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” and I want you to highlight “everyone” because this includes you. No matter who you are, no matter where you’re from, no matter what happened in your life, whether it be good or bad or indifferent … it says clearly “everyone”. Not “some” nor “the special” nor “the clever”. It says “everyone”. I feel it is very important we all fully understand that God is speaking to us as individuals as we are right here, right now.

God talks about us being saved, so let’s start at this point.

Saved from what?

In this current time that we live in, saving is not popular, so the idea of us being saved is strange. When we think about falling in the water and cannot swim, or caught in a fire, or tripping and falling off a cliff, then the idea of being saved makes sense as in saved from possible death — don’t you agree?

At the moment you might not be worried that you are in any mortal danger, so you don’t actually need to be saved from anything, but God is speaking about you in relation to eternity. So you might say “I have the rest of my life, so I don’t need to think about death or even eternity right now”, but this isn’t very assuring when we see loved ones, neighbours, even maybe school folk we know of dying of cancer or disease or some other similar situation that has caused a quickened death. No-one knows what the future holds for any of us – but thankfully God knows all things. He knows all about your today, and your tomorrow – and your forever! Now, wouldn’t it be great if he’d show us, so we can be prepared? But I don’t know about you, I’d rather not know on which hour, day and in which year I shall die.

Storms of life

We all face storms and difficulties in our lives. Everyone of us goes through trials and tribulations, and for me, having a faith in God has helped me to feel strong and able – knowing God is there with me helping me through these difficult situations. Not necessarily smoothing the way, or making it easy for me, but helping me to understand what He’s trying to teach me through the problems I face, and hopefully, when I meet others in a similar struggle, I can help them with what I have learnt.

As God helps us through the storms of life, we should all learn to trust Him and let Him help us. I know, when it comes time for me to leave this earth, that there is a life to come. I trust God and His word, the Bible, that tells me so. In the Bible He tells us that he is preparing a place in heaven for those who trust in Him, and so we need not fear death, for death has lost its sting. Being saved through Jesus Christ, in reality means we have an eternal destination in heaven, and that destination is to be with a God who loves us.

Call – like you mean it!

Some ask, how are you supposed to call? If this verse tells me to call on the name of the Lord, what does this mean?

It’s simple!

Let me take you back to your childhood. You know – that time when you got lost in a crowd or a supermarket. Most of us weren’t scared at first, in fact we enjoyed our independence. However, it wasn’t long until we recognised it was better to be with our mums and dads than on our own, and we became frightened.

It’s then that we called out for our parents. Some of us shouted, some wailed at the top of their voices, others grabbed the nearest person to ask them for help. Each of us were calling for reconciliation with our parents (or at least those who were looking after us). We called from our hearts – we called from our fear of being left alone – we called to belong again. Calling on the name of the Lord means just this – from your heart.

Why do we need to be saved and from what?

The Bible tells us in Genesis that we used to live in a perfect world. It was perfect because we knew who God was and there was no chance of getting lost from him … but we did! Humankind turned their backs on God and decided to be deceitful (we call this sin). This sin brought a punishment on humankind in the form of death – eternal death. This eternal death is the reason why we need to be saved. And this is why we need to call on the name of the Lord to be saved. Only Jesus Christ can save you and give you true life.

This is a really big topic and I doubt if many of you really want to go into it – but it could be the most life transforming thing you will ever do in the existence of your life – and it would be a change for the better. I encourage you to drop us a line – to find out why God thinks you are so amazing, He wants you to call on His name.

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About the Author

John Goodway, the author of this page, is an evangelist, a preacher, a teacher, an ex-DJ. He works for Outreach UK who help people in churches talk to people outside of churches about Jesus and the things of the Bible.

To know more of his story go to his website.

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