When Christ Calls
John 11:28
Illustration
by Jon L. Joyce

In the King James version the text reads: "The Master has come, and calleth for you." This has been used as a funeral text, reminding the mourners that death for a Christian is simply the call of Christ to come up higher, that he who is the resurrection and the life is leading a loved one into the fulfillment of highest hopes. But Christ calls all through life, not just at death. He calls us to Christian service and to a life of faith.

Charles Lamb once made an interesting observation: "Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door." It is true, for a sense of curiosity and of expectancy rises quickly in our emotional response to the sound of a knock. Christ is continually knocking and we must hear him as he seeks in many ways to attract our attention. His knock on the door of our life is the most important of all. When it sounds, do we pretend not to have heard or that we are not at home? We will have to answer his knock if we are to have fellowship with him and receive the blessings he has come to bestow.

CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio, His Hands, by Jon L. Joyce