Are you called to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Jesus invested the 12 with power over unclean spirits, so they knew.
Amos did not know he was called to prophesy. But he was doing so, and then the Lord came and told him to prophesy to Israel.
But Paul tells us in Ephesians that God has marked all of us. In Jesus Christ we “have received our inheritance.” This inheritance is our “freedom and forgiveness of sins.” We know “the message of truth and gospel of [our] salvation.” These are one and the same thing, and we are called to go preach this Gospel — freedom and the forgiveness of sins. That is our salvation!
This duty is a heavy one. Our shoulders should bow under the pressure of carrying out this gospel message if we only realized the reality of it. I’ve seen pictures of former students being ordained as transitional deacons and priests over the last few weeks. They have taken this mantle upon themselves to live out the Gospel message — to lead people to the truth which is freedom and forgiveness of sins.
It is too easy for us to think that they have this calling and we do not. We’re married with children, or single with careers that we cannot live without. We have baseball teams and conferences and friends to hang with. It’s not our job to preach this Gospel.
It’s easy to think that. In our hearts, though, we know that every day we live this Gospel message — the message of forgiveness — then we live in the Freedom of Christ and we prophesy before the world that freedom and forgiveness. And when we fail to forgive. When we separate our lives from that Gospel message. When we refuse to give money to the man with the sign on the highway, or the woman with the dirty kids in tow looking starved because they aren’t being responsible for themselves — then we do not forgive, and we too are trapped in slavery — slavery to beliefs about responsibility that have nothing to do with the human response to pain and suffering.
Which is forgiveness and freedom.
But maybe the weight is too heavy on our shoulders.