The Clarion Call

How are you approaching this next year? Do you anticipate some changes in lifestyle and purpose, and are you committed to follow through to completion? Life as a born-again believer compels us to follow a Clarion Call that only God can clearly make known to each of us. A clarion call is a call that compels us to give our lives to Jesus daily and seek Him in His Word and through a deep time of prayer, and God will reveal that clarion call that gives our lives true meaning and purpose. In a world full of waffling truths and purposes, a clarion call from God cuts through the nonsense and draws us to a clear truth about God, His Word, our personal convictions, and much more. A religious life of "my impressions" is not a clarion call. Clarion Call (def) - a strongly expressed demand or request for action. Where and how does this clarion call come into being in a believer's life? When that believer is "bankrupt" on their own second-hand faith, and they immerse themselves truthfully in following Jesus, without other people's opinions or faith, but they "own" a personal faith that doesn't accept anything that isn't based on the Word of God and their developing prayer life. When I write own, I mean a person's individual "eye" of faith is open, and they see clearly what God is saying to them, and not through some religious organization. Paul knew what this clarion call was and how it would happen for others, and in Ephesians 1, he wrote the following words, hoping those who were so religious "first" would give up their religion and follow the call God had on their life. Ephesians 1:¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling ^is, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Paul was on the front lines in his missionary journeys, and he had seen firsthand how religion had held believers back from following this clarion call to action, and he was very serious about keeping the vein of true faith pure and undefiled by manmade religion. In Colossians 2, Paul writes the following about man's contrived religious rules. Colossians 2:²⁰ If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ²¹ “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” ²² (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of man? ²³ These are matters which do have the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

The Clarion Call will be the call that God puts on your individual life when you lay down all the old things that are quasi-scriptural and only trust what God's Word is saying to you as an individual. The cool thing about it is God takes all of these personal relationships and makes a fellowship from the heart out of them, and we call that the church. My nephew called me a while back and said their pastor had led them to only pure truth, and he exposed all the sayings that are not Biblical, and let their church accept only God's Word as truth and not the church's sayings. Smart pastor.

No more watering down the truth of God's Word. Just purely God's Word will do, and the Clarion Call will be the result, and that is what god wants anyway. Anything less is man-induced and compromised. Go to the source and make sure the Word of God is the only source! Don't just read it, but see what God is trying to tell you and let your eyes be open to the truth. The Holy Spirit is in you just waiting to show you so much more!!

The Pilgrimage Continues,

David Warren