This section is from the book, "Radical" by David Platt and it's entitled "I'm Not Called" (pg.72-74)

Before you judge, I want you take a look at what it says and then align it with scripture and see where your thinking lines up. This is to challenge you and me about if our thinking is American or Biblical. I will be breaking the next few parts up in different blogs, so be ready for more. Also, I would have paraphrased, but he says it so much better.

I wonder if we have in some ways intentionally and in other ways unknowingly erected lines of defense against the global purpose God has for our lives. It's not uncommon to hear Christians say, "Well, not everyone is called to foreign missions," or more specifically, "I am not called to foreign missions." When we say this, we are usually referring to foreign missions as on optional program in the church for the faithful few who apparently are called to that. In this mind-set, missions is a compartmentalized program of the church, select folks are good at missions and passionate about missions. Meanwhile, the rest of us are willing to watch the missions slide show when the missionaries come home, but in the end God has just not called most of us to do this missions thing.

But where in the Bible is missions ever identified as an optional program in the church? We have just seen that we were all created by God, saved from our sins, and blessed by God to make his glory known in all the world. Indeed, Jesus himself has not merely called us to go to all nations, he has created us and commanded us to go to all nations. We have taken this command, though, and reduced it to a calling—something that only a few people receive.

I find it interesting that we don't do this with other words from Jesus. We take Jesus' command in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations, and we say, "That means other people." But we look at Jesus' command in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest," and we say, "Now, that means me." We take Jesus' promise in Acts 1:8 that the Spirit will lead us to the ends of the earth, and we say, "That means some people." But we take Jesus' promise in John 10:10 that we have abundant life, and we say, "That means me."

In the process we have unnecessarily (and unbiblically) drawn a line of distinction, assigning the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all. In this way we choose to send off other people to carry out the global purpose of Christianity while the rest of us sit back because we're "just not called to that."

Now, we know that each of us has different gifts, different skills, different passions, and different callings from God. God has gifted you and me in different ways. This is undoubtedly the case with the disciples. Peter and Paul had different callings. James and John had different callings. However, each follower of Christ in the New Testament, regardless of his or her calling, was intended to take up the mantle of proclaiming the gospel to the ends of the earth. That's the reason why he gave each of them his Spirit and why he gave them all the same plan: make disciples of all nations.

Isn't it the same today?