How can I know if I am being called to serve as a missionary?

The Holy Spirit makes it plain that He is calling them to serve full-time. This call will also be recognized by their local assemblies who then gladly extend to them the right hand of fellowship. The pattern for this is seen in the call to service of Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13:1-4).

But every true servant of Christ will be fully conscious in his own soul of the divine call to service. The Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those whom the Lord would use as His ministers. His call is realized in their soul, and the heart is exercised and made willing to respond to the heavenly summons. Many examples of this divine calling are given in the Old and New Testaments, which the interested reader may profitably consider. (See Isa. 6; Jer. 1; Mark 1:16-20; 3:13, 14; Acts 9 and 22 as a few examples.)

In the first place, Bezaleel received a divine call: "See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri." In like manner Paul speaks, "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen," etc. It was impossible, therefore, for one or the other to doubt either as to the origin or the nature of his service. It is readily conceded that calls of this character were special and extraordinary; but, while admitting this to the full, it must be earnestly maintained that every servant now must be the subject of a divine call as distinct and as constraining as these pattern servants. True, it will be an inward one, and as such a secret between the Lord and the soul; but it will not, on this account, be any the less efficacious. It would be presumptuous in the extreme to embark upon any service without the overwhelming conviction that we had been called to it by the Lord. "I must go," said the only son of a rich merchant to his father, "and preach the gospel among the heathen." "My son," replied the father, "I cannot spare you; you are a comfort to me, and I want you at home. Stay, and I will sustain ten servants of the Lord to preach the gospel to the heathen." "Yes, father," said the son, "I would gladly remain if it were open to my choice; but the Lord has called me to go, so that I should not be free to abide at home if you were to send twenty in my stead."

All are not called to this service. The call, when it comes, will be inward and irresistible. It will assert itself more in the privacy of one’s heart than in public.

How the Lord will make you know what His will is I fear I cannot say. But you must hold fast that if the Master has any service for you to perform, He Himself will send you to do it, and will give you the assurance that you are taking orders from Him. At the same time you must on your part be desirous of hearing His voice. The Lord uses many ways of bringing His work before His servants; by means of the Scriptures, or the advice of their elders, or the vacant class. but whatever the means, it is imperative that, after earnest, continued prayer, you should find that the Lord by those means is showing to you what His will is.

It is a serious though a most happy thing to undertake direct service. … The mere fact of an inclination does not shew that we are called to it. I believe the surest sign is earnest love to souls, and intercourse through the need of the heart with Christ about it. … It is not the desire to speak, but for souls and the building up of saints which is the real moving spring of service.

p231 Dearest G Gausby, - It is a serious though a most happy thing to undertake direct service - that is, a service which takes up all our time. I would there were many more really gifted by love to souls, and zeal for the Lord's glory, to lay themselves out in and for it. The mere fact of an inclination does not shew that we are called to it. I believe the surest sign is earnest love to souls, and intercourse through the need of the heart with Christ about it. I doubt not there is a pressure often of the Spirit of God which forces you out into it. Many may be most useful, giving up a portion of their time to it, who would not be giving up all, because they cannot fill up the measure of allotted service with Christ. On the other hand, men of much energy and zeal can serve and support themselves (witness Paul, and in his case even others) when one of less could not who might be very useful if given up to it. It is not the desire to speak, but for souls and the building up of saints which is the real moving spring of service. I know not how far this presses on you.

It would perhaps be well for us to consider now what his ministry had in view potentially. We might take up verses 4, 5 and 6 in relation to his call; verses 7 and 8 in reference to his commission; and verse 9 in regard to his consecration. Then in verse 10 we see the result of his service. There must first of all be the clear apprehension of the call; not one of us can take up divine service unless we are absolutely sure God has called us to it. It can be embarrassing at times when brethren say, "I thought you would have been the very man to do that", when conscious that one is not the man to do that. There is considerable danger in thinking servants of the Lord can do everything. It would be well for each of us "not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith" (Romans 12:3). If I think soberly in relation to God and to the call that He has given to me, I shall not be trying to do things for which I have no ability.

The viewpoint of the servant and that of the assembly must be kept fully distinct in this matter. While the servant is to be entirely God's servant, and not man's, yet the assembly is called upon to discern as to whether it can have fellowship with him in his work. We have observed that it is only right and considerate that the servant should communicate to his assembly the exercise he may have as to any field of service to which the Lord may call him. Then it becomes a concern of the assembly as to how fully it may be free to express fellowship in this work. They must above all look for the evidence that it is God who has called him. In this is involved the principle mentioned at the time of Timothy's first going forth with Paul, that he "was well reported of by the brethren" (Acts 16:2). There were those who knew him well.

But God delights also to see exercise as to the Lord's work shared by others who have such concern. Paul mentions in Galatians 2:1-10 his going to Jerusalem and communicating to the other apostles the gospel God had given him, with the result of wholehearted fellowship together in the respective work God had given to each. Such fellowship is seen also in Acts 13:23. Paul was called for a special work and others had no difficulty in discerning this. This is important. It is always wise to communicate with brethren close at hand, and of course specially the local assembly with which one is connected, as regards his exercise in some special service for the Lord. If they are not free to express fellowship in this case, then he ought to seriously consider this; for if they truly seek the mind of God, they should have some discernment as to the fact of his being called by God for that which he proposes.

Not that they decide the matter. It is God who decides this, but God may use the reservations of an assembly as a means of further exercising the servant. Of course it is possible that an assembly may be mistaken in either approving or disapproving of a servant's intentions. If in spite of an assembly's doubts, the servant embarks on the service he proposes, let it be in true humbleness of mind before God and with settled confidence in God alone. He must be prepared for the fact that his assembly will not be likely to contribute to his support and that this too may influence others in their thoughts of his service. But if God has sent him, God will sustain him. If not, then he must expect the shame of having to give up that which will then have proven to be the effort of self-confidence. If he proves diligent and faithful in his work, it is this that will gain the confidence of his assembly and of others in recognizing that God has sent him.