TD Jakes - Calling
He called. He called what was his. He called what was his. Yeah. I only bother what's mine. I don't want anything that ain't mine. "If you're mine, come here. If you're really not mine, leave me alone. Go on about your business. I only want what's mine". Y'all don't hear what I'm saying. I have a word for you getting up of the bed this morning. Yeah. Only call to you what's yours, those he did foreknow. He did predestinate. Them he also called. Not those, not they, just them; those he did foreknow.
And little by little as you become more and more spiritual, you're coming into an awareness of who you really are. And the more you recognize who you really are, the less you are willing to be who you were. Those he did foreknow, one more thing I want to pull out of that foreknow 'cause I want you to understand the debate between this predestined and foreknowledge theological debate. I want, for those of you who can eat on this level, to have the, there's a big argument because they think that when God predestined you, he makes you be saved and that wouldn't be fair because he makes some people be saved and then other people he doesn't make them be saved, and they have a big argument about all of that.
That as silly as saying that the weatherman who forecasts the rain made it wet. Even though he forecasted, he foreknew it, he doesn't make it rain because he knows it's going to. "And Thursday, the temperature will be 107 degrees. Don't worry about it. We'll get some relief on Friday morning. The rain will break out at 8:15 in the morning". Did he make it rain? No. But he foreknew it would. He foreknew you. He foreknew you. And out of the basis of that foreknowledge, not only knowing you before he predestined you, in advance, before destined ending, okay?
So before ended you, he predestined. He carried the umbrella because he knew it would rain. He didn't make it rain, but on the basis of his foreknowledge, he set things in motion to accommodate what he foreknew. Because he foreknew you, he predestined an environment that would cause you to be rejected out of several places so that you would not rest beneath your destiny. He disrupted your circumstances. He moved your life around. He ordered your steps. He determined who you hooked up with. He determined the level of your rejection. He prescribed the level of and intensity of your pain so that you would have enough conviction when you got up to be forceful about this. He pull you back far enough so that you would shoot forward far enough on the basis of his foreknowledge.
So if I'm one of them, if I'm one of them, it's all good. It is all good. "You left me, it's all good". Yeah. "I'm wounded about it, but it's all good 'cause God is going to use the fact that you left me and the pain I have about it to push me into the purpose that he has predestined. So you couldn't stay. You had to go 'cause you came in my life because you had a role to play". What would Jesus be without Judas? You're saying what would Judas be without Jesus, I'm saying what would Jesus be without Judas. He had a role to play. Good God of mercy.
Who was your Judas? He had a role to play. God brought him in at a certain time. Caught you at a particular moment. Put you in a particular situation. You learned a particular set of lessons 'cause God has predestined, fixed your end from the beginning. And since he knew it was going to rain, he didn't wear white shoes. Since he knew it was going to rain, he didn't wear white pants. Since he knew it was going to rain, he carried an umbrella but none of that made it rain. He just foreknew. Those he did foreknow, he did also predestinate. "And all that came to me could not resist and all that left me could not stay".
You're not here 'cause you want to be, you're here 'cause you can't go. Everything that can go will go. Everybody that could leave you did or will. Some people cannot walk away. Their commitment is born out of the call. I'm called to serve you. I'm called to help you. I'm called to love you. I'm called to raise this child. Nobody else could raise this child like I could raise this child. God trusted me with this child and their peculiarities and their dysfunctions and their abnormalities. God trusted me with it. I'm called to it. I have the grace for it. I can handle it. I'm the man for the job. I'm the woman for the job. I'm the wife for the job. I'm the husband for the job. I have been predestined, preset, predetermined.
My destiny has been set and I am right on-course. If it's working, it's working 'cause it's supposed to. If it's not working, it's not working 'cause it's not supposed to. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. I thought you was people of faith. Or do you only believe God when he says yes? Those he did foreknow he did also predestinate, and them he also called. Called is the hinge to the text. He could foreknow me and me not know it. He could predestine me and me not know it. This is all stuff that's done in the kitchen before the customer gets the entrée. This is God's divine prep work. It all happen in the Spirit world before you got here, but called cannot be done independent from me.
So called is when he brings into time what he has done in eternity and makes me aware of what has already been done. Even though I cannot see the chef prep the meal, I am the beneficiary of the preparation. He did it where I couldn't see it. He's been marinating it all night. When he brings it to me, I benefit from what was pre-marinated back in the kitchen, from a pre-heated oven in a predetermined place. When he brings it to me, I am presented what he has prepared before. At the point he call you, he presents to you what he has prepared.
Ooh, my God, good God of mercy. The side benefit of the texts, the invisible information of the texts, the transcendental ideology of the texts, the implication of the texts is your significance because you're told, "Put that much prep into something that is insignificant". The calling is when he makes you aware of not only did I prep for you, but also the side effects of this information is that I am significant. "Wow, didn't know that. That's why I got these tracks in my arm. Didn't know that. That's why I snorted all the hair out my nose. I didn't know that. That's why I gave myself to anybody who wanted me, fascinated that they liked me because I didn't know I was significant".
And if you don't know it's significant, you'll give it to anybody. Could be sex. Could be devotion to something less than you. Could be a lifestyle that doesn't fit you. Your need to belong may have made you hook up with a group and define yourself with the people that you really are not. But in the absence of your own significance because you need to be validated, you attach yourself to a group of people for a sense of belonging. Because you never really had family, they became family to you and now you belong to a cause and fight for a solution in a war you have no business in at all.
Look at somebody and say, "He called me". Come here, Antar. You know why he walked across here? 'Cause I called him. You know why he came and nobody else came? 'Cause I didn't call them. I called who I wanted. He heard my voice. He responded to the call. What he doesn't know is that I plan to call him before I called him for I foreknew I would use him in this illustration and I predestined to be this far from him so he would have to walk this far so you would get to see it so I could use it, and I did all of it without telling him and he didn't know he would be here today until I called him. But I predestined and predetermined for him to stand in this spot before we ever even got to church, and you never knew a thing about it until I call.
Touch your neighbor and say, "Something happened to me. I was just happy. I was just chilling. I was just drunk. I was just high. I was just having a good time. I was building my business. I was going home with my friends. I was hanging out with all my cut buddies, my running dogs, my constituents, my contemporaries, my intellects, and my friends and then all of a sudden he messed up everything 'cause he..". You get it? You don't call nobody you don't want. Now, somebody might wander to you that you don't want, but you don't call nobody that you don't want. You don't call anybody you don't have a plan for. You don't call anybody without a purpose. You don't call anybody and then say, "I don't know what I want with you".
If you got good sense, if you got good sense, you had the purpose before you called the person. Ooh, Good God. Wonder who you are that he would put so much labor and work and setting the stage for you. The details are in the prep work. The circumstances had to be right. The age had to be determined. The era had to be determined. The gender had to be determined. The community had to be determined. The exterior, your look, your walk, your movement, your body language, your IQ, your intellect. All none of it just happened. Predetermined, preset from before the foundations of the world. Look at what he told Jeremiah. "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. I ordained thee. I sanctified thee".
Sanctified means set apart. "I meant for you not to fit. I set you apart. They couldn't like you. They couldn't keep you. They couldn't raise you. I meant for you to be a misfit. I meant for you to stand out. I meant for you to search for love you couldn't find and peace you couldn't touch and joy you couldn't hold on to. It was all a setup". See, thank you. Excuse me. I know. Pray for me. People who fit don't seek. People who fit don't seek. The seekers are people who do not fit. Them he also called.
Called is the point where he makes me aware that I am not they, I'm them. Needs no church at all. Needs no church, needs no preacher. I've seen it happen in the club. Spin you around on a barstool and say, "You ain't got no business in here". I've seen it happen in a hotel room. Get up and sit on the side of the bed and say, "What was that all about? This is not me at all". No choir in the choir stand, no praise dancing. None of that. Just God said, "Come here, Helen". I've seen him call you out of the clutches of cancer. Cancer is coming in for the kill and they think for sure they got you. They tell you what stage you're in, and he calls you and cancer can't hold you. Cancer can't hold on to you. When God calls you, nothing can hold you. Ooh!
Touch your neighbor and tell them, "He called me out. He called me. He called me. Cancer can't hold me, leukemia can't hold me, sin can't hold me, and you know you can't hold me. How are you going to hold me if God called me? You must be out of your mind. If he called me, I don't have to have money, I don't have to have friends, I don't have to have you. Everything can be working against me, but if he called me, my God shall supply all "Lord, how can you call me"? This has been the great paradox of dilemma of my life. "How can you call a mess like me"? Am I the only one that feels like that? I said, "I must have been standing near somebody. This is got to be a mistake. Ain't no way God is going to call somebody like me to do something like this.
Touch somebody and say, "He called me". Ain't no way God could call somebody like me to do something like this. "Was he sleeping when I was living? Was he looking the other way when I was acting a fool? What in the world is he doing calling me with the holy calling? He coulda called me with a high calling. He's going to call me with some", all right, let me quit telling all my business. You ain't telling none of your stuff. I'm telling all of mine. I'm just saying I was confused, what in the world was he all up in my face for and yet with courts of love, he drew me. I tried to get away, but I couldn't. I said I wasn't going to be committed, but I couldn't stop myself.
My friends stayed in the bed, but I got up and went to church. I don't even know why I kept coming to church 'cause I had been in the club Friday and Saturday but I had to get up Sunday and come to church. They didn't have to come, but I had to come. I couldn't get away from him. I couldn't sleep myself away from him. I couldn't drink myself away from him. Shake your neighbor like you're going to shake him to death and say, "You can't get away". You can run, but you can't hide. You'll never get away. If you make your bed in hell, he's there. If you go to prison, he's going to be waiting for you in the jail cell. I don't care if you're the president of the United States, if God call you... Whoo. If God call you!
The call is not complete if I don't tell you about the wooing that comes from the call. He'll call you and put a wooing, a drawing, a compulsion, an attraction. Like a magnet to metal, there's an attraction. Even though you got contradictions, there's still an attraction. Some of your family doesn't feel it, but you have an attraction. People related to you don't understand it, but you have an attraction. Hallelujah to God.
The attraction, the allure, the pull, the draw, you may not be saved, but you got saved tendencies. You'll get it tomorrow. You ain't no Christian, but you got Christian tendencies. You ain't no preacher, but you got preaching. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't just happen. I'm not an accident. I'm not a mistake. Even if my daddy didn't stay, even if my mama didn't keep me, even if I was adopted, it don't make no difference. Even if I was born out of rape, I still wasn't an accident. I still wasn't a mistake. It was a bad way to come, but I'm glad I got here. I have purpose to be here - He called me!