One of those things which Saint Paul addresses so clearly is the benefit of responding favorably to the call of God upon a life, and the price to be paid for not doing that. We read in Galatians 5.7-9: You were running a good race. This is directed to one who had responded to the call of the Lord, and followed through for a time, but then became side-tracked through the influence of others with whom life is lived.
It is important that each one recognizes that being drawn away from the Lord’s call is a very important and expensive matter. The source of all of this behavior will always be the enemy of God, no matter who does the task: Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? Things were going so well, and then everything came to a halt. To not follow through on obeying the truth is to actively choose to follow the lie.
The Lord is never wishy-washy in his call upon a life. He is absolutely sincere and clear in not only the call but the cost of both obeying the call and of not doing so: That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. How easy it seems to be to distract a servant from obedience to God’s call, and yet there are so very many things which carry an importance to the life of each of us—that is the danger.
The end result is that everything about one’s faith walk becomes infected with this disease of doubt: ‘A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.’ It can never be a matter of choosing which areas will demonstrate obedience to God and those which I will reserve for myself. When it comes to obeying God’s call it is always a matter of total service or no service to God. Each of us is called—who will follow?