Commitment? What's that?

As fast as school dwindled down and I found myself weeks away from graduating, my motivation and dedication to work hard and earnestly dwindled even faster. I wasn't as committed to my school-work anymore, it seemed more and more uninteresting and less and less important. Because of my lack of commitment and focus, I didn't do as well as I could have. 

Now, I will say that I maintained all A's and B's still, but my heart was not truly in my work, and in certain assignments and projects, that was clearly evident.

We all know that by how committed we are to something, is how prosperous the results will be.

Last night I was reading in 1 Kings 8 when I came across this verse:

v. 61 - "But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time."

This verse really stuck out to me.

'I must be fully committed in order to live and obey God's commands?' was my thought. And I realized it was completely right! 

But then I began to think of how many people live their lives half-devoted to Christ, one foot in the world, and one foot in the church. We try to have the "best of both worlds" by having a little bit of Jesus over here and a little bit of the world over there. But it just doesn't work that way. We cannot truly be serving and following Jesus if we are not FULLY committed to Him.

It reminds me of a song by the (amazing) band Philmont, called 'The Difference'. Part of the lyrics say:

"And I tried so hard to mix the old life with the new,
But there's no in-between if I'm gonna follow you.

There's gotta be a difference
It's gotta be significant
If you're really inside changing my life
You would shine, you would be evident
If there's a difference."

I think these lyrics are SO true. I mean, how often do us "Christians" look just like everyone else? How often do we hold the same lifestyles, or make the same poor choices as pagans? Sure, we aren't perfect, we are bound to fail. And no, we aren't better by any means. But we are called to be different, we are called to not be conformed by the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).

We cannot expect to have extravagant spiritual maturity and growth if we are still trying to take part in the world. If we are not truly and fully committed to Christ, then we are setting ourselves up for failure.

If you want Christ to do a work in your life, if you want to know Him in the deepest and most fulfilling sense, then that requires sacrifice. That requires giving up what your sinful nature so greatly desires to have. God did not send His son Jesus to suffer, to be beaten and to die for our sins, simply for us to live half-hearted lives, lives that are not truly glorifying to God.

I think a problem I have personally is that so often I depend on myself to be fully committed, rather than realizing the weak human I am, so weak that I truly can not fulfill the commitment. By doing this we are doing the exact opposite of the Gospel. The Gospel tells us we need Jesus, that we cannot do anything without Him, that are are only really capable of sinning. If you don't depend and rely on Jesus then you will fail, and fail, and fail again.

It's a struggle I deal with daily in my life, in my heart and in my mind. It's tough. The world surrounds us everywhere, but with Christ, we can do all things. Because of His great and profound strength, we are able to be fully committed to Him.

So tell me Christian, how committed are you? Do you try to have it both ways? Or are you so in love with Jesus, that you are willing to give up everything in order to genuinely follow Him?

I dare you to take up that statement with all sincerity and give it ALL up to Jesus, and with that, who knows where He may lead you!