Pastor William Murrell of Every Nation Seminary and the Senior Pastor of All Saints Church based in Nashville, Tennessee was our preacher at Victory Makati yesterday, preaching on Romans 1:1–7. I went into service expecting a good word—something encouraging, something theological, something to chew on for the week but I did not expect to be quietly undone by one phrase: “We are all called to be saints.”

That word, saint, is loaded in our context. For many Filipinos, “saint” feels like a Catholic category: rare, elevated, almost unattainable and the kind of person you admire from a distance, but never really imagine becoming. A saint is for stained glass and statues, for the canonized and the exceptional. So when Pastor William kept repeating it, you are called to be saints, it challenged something deep in me… not just my theology, my instincts.

If I’m honest, I’ve often treated holiness like extra credit, ike something for the spiritually intense, like a level you reach after you’ve “fixed yourself.” I’ve also treated sainthood like a compliment God gives to someone else, never to me on my average Tuesday, with my human limitations, my struggles, my impatience, my unfinished sanctification.

But Romans 1:1–7 doesn’t let me stay there. Paul writes to “all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.” Not “called if you perform well.” Not “called after you prove yourself.” Not “called once you clean up.” It’s simple and shocking: if you are loved by God, you are called to be a saint.

And that’s what Pastor William emphasized: sainthood is about being called, not canonized. The call comes from God… holiness is not something we invent; it is something we receive as a summons. God has already called you to be holy and you don’t need to wait for a special moment, a special leader, or a special assignment to “activate” your holiness. The call has already been issued.

That’s when one line from the sermon hit me hard: God is calling us to be saints, not trying hard to be one. What a relief and what a rebuke.

Because many of us live as if Christianity is mainly about self-improvement: try harder, do better, be stricter, be more disciplined. We reduce discipleship into moral grit and we confuse spiritual growth with spiritual pressure, in the process, we forget how Jesus actually called people.

He didn’t say, “Come, prove your holiness.” He said, “Come, follow me.”

That’s a relational call before it’s a behavioral one, it is belonging before becoming. And Pastor William framed it in a way I won’t forget: sainthood is being beloved before being become. You were beloved first. The love of God came before your progress, before your maturity, before your victories over sin. You didn’t earn the love, you received it.

And here’s the part that felt deeply personal to me: God’s love produces our holiness. This flips the order we often live by. Many of us try to become holy so God will love us more, but the gospel says the opposite: God loves you in Christ, therefore He makes you holy. Holiness isn’t a ladder we climb to reach God; it’s the fruit that grows because God has already reached us.

And then Pastor William implied something that felt was both confronting and deeply clarifying: “Loving someone who doesn’t deserve to be loved is what makes you holy.” That one exposed how I sometimes define holiness too narrowly. I tend to equate holiness with avoiding obvious sin, or maintaining personal discipline, or being “morally clean.” Those matter, yes, but holiness is also painfully relational. It shows up when you are wronged and still choose patience. When you are disappointed and still choose kindness. When someone doesn’t deserve your love, and you still love, not because you’re naïve, but because you’re being shaped into the image of Christ.

Holiness is not just separation from sin. It is resemblance to Jesus and Jesus’ holiness was not sterile: it was compassionate, it moved toward peoplem, it embraced the undeserving, It loved at cost.

That’s why sainthood, as Pastor William said, is not only desirable, it’s inevitable for the Christian. Not because we are strong, but because God is faithful. God doesn’t call us and then leave us to figure it out. He calls, He loves, He forms, He completes.

So I left service with two invitations ringing in my heart:

1. Receive God’s love.
   Not as a concept, not as doctrine alone, but as the deep, personal reality that you are beloved in Christ.
2. Receive God’s calling.
   Not as pressure, not as performance but as identity and direction: you are called to be holy, you are called to be a saint.

Not canonized by people, called by God.

And maybe that is the most freeing part of all: sainthood is not a status for the extraordinary. It is God’s destiny for the ordinary, people like us, who keep saying yes to Jesus, keep following, keep returning to His love, and keep letting that love shape how we live.

You were first beloved before becoming a saint so don’t wait for someone to call you to holiness. God already has.

Receive His love. Receive His calling.