Today’s 333 Devotional: “Up and Out”

“Called up and out.” This is the call of God upon those who call themselves Christians.

This was God’s call upon Moses. He was called up to God’s mountain, and then God called him out of everything that defiles.

First, it began with God’s call at Mount Sinai. “The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” (Exodus 19:20)

The Lord came down and called Moses up. In the same way Jesus came down, and after His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, He calls us up.

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” (John 6:37)

The Apostle Paul said, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14)

But God didn’t stop there. God also called Moses to come out because of the people’s sin and perversion.

“Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp.” (Exodus 33:7)

The Lord is calling us out to be a separate people, no longer to be joined to the world’s ways.

Speaking to believers who retain within them the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul questioned what agreement God’s temple has with the world’s idolatrous worship and perversion.

Then the Lord said, “‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’” (2 Corinthians 6:16b, 17)

We need to follow the upward and outward call of God?