I have been asked many times … what is the call of God? I have always referred to a short piece by Oswald Chambers that clears up the confusion of thinking it means called to do something for the Lord.
The call of God is not a call to any particular service; my interpretation of it may be because contact with the nature of God has made me realize what I would like to do for Him. The call of God is essentially expressive of His nature; service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature. The vocation of the natural life is stated by the apostle Paul – “When it pleased God to reveal His son in me that I might preach Him “(sacramentally express) among the gentiles.”
Service is the overflow of super abounding devotion; but, profoundly speaking, there is no call to that, it is my own little actual bit and is the echo of my identification with the nature of God. Service is the natural part of my life. God gets me into a relationship with Himself whereby I understand His call, then I do things out of sheer love for Him on my own account. To serve God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is expressive of that which is fitted to my nature: God’s call is expressive of His nature; consequently, when I receive His nature and hear His call, the voice of the Divine nature sounds in both and the two work together. The son of God reveals Himself in me when I serve Him in the ordinary ways of life out of devotion to Him. Oswald Chambers
Paul clearly speaks to the issue in his letter to the Romans. We have been called to allow the Holy Spirit to conform us into the image – the character – of Christ. We are called to work out the life of Christ that we have been given, which is revealed to the world around us by how we serve Him as we live His life every day.
Rom 8:29-30 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.