“gifts” – charisma – 1 a favour with which one receives without any merit of his own. 2 the gift of divine grace. 3 the gift of faith, knowledge, holiness, virtue. 4 the economy of divine grace, by which the pardon of sin and eternal salvation is appointed to sinners in consideration of the merits of Christ laid hold of by faith. (Rom 1:11; 5:15; 6:23; 11:29; 12:6; 1Cor 1:7; 7:7; 12:4; 2Cor 1:11; 1Tim 4:14; 2Tim 1:6; 1Pet 4:10)
“call” – klesis – basically means vocation and a divine invitation, but comes from the word kaleo, which implies to receive a name or to bear a title.
“irrevocable” – ametameletos – Strong’s Lexicon says “Two occurrences; AV translates as “without repentance” once, and “not to be repented of” once. 1 not repentant of, unregretted.
This is interesting because “to repent” means “to change one’s mind.” It basically means to do a 180 and go the other direction.
Substituting those meanings into this verse makes it read much different.
God’s divine gift of grace – my eternal salvation – and my calling – my vocational call, my title, my position in life, my destiny – if you will – is something that God has given me, granted me and will not change His mind on… ever.
The cool – and freeing – thing to me is that I can’t do anything to “undo” His gift. I can’t remove myself from his list. I can’t do anything that will make Him rescind his gift or my calling. Those things that affect my relationship with Him (sin, unforgiveness, disobedience, etc) can greatly affect my effectiveness in my calling, but it can’t change my calling.
So, how do I become as effective as possible? How do I walk in and know what my calling is? That is the question.
Running After Papa…