Commitment: April 12, 2010

April 12. TODAYS WORD FOR MONDAY APRIL 12, 2010.

COMMITMENT

DEFINITION:

A pledge or promise; obligation; a sincere commitment to religion.

SCRIPTURE:

“Commit yourselves to the Lord and serve Him daily.” 1 Samuel 7:3

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3.

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” Luke 9:23.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

It was on the cross that Christ laid down His life for us as a sacrifice for our sins. The cross in Roman times was designed for death. It had no other use. When Jesus said for us to come after Him and take up our cross, He was not saying that we should all be crucified. Just as He surrendered Himself on the cross, we are to surrender ourselves to Him.

What our Lord is telling us is that “take up your cross and follow me” means that we will face opposition when we follow Him and we must be willing to suffer, perhaps even die. In following Jesus we will have many crosses to face which we will have to take up and carry. What he was saying was that we are to put to death our own heart’s desires and commit ourselves to follow Him.

We will have to put up with misunderstanding, embarrassment, loss of esteem and accepting difficult unchangeable circumstances. The noted missionary and poet Amy Carmichael wrote, “In acceptance lieth peace.” This is what God wants from us daily as we rise every morning. We daily must cheerfully and bravely shoulder our load. And in I Corinthians 15: 53-57 Jesus promises that through our dying to self, He will make us more alive than ever. In acceptance we find peace.

In Luke 14, Jesus tells His disciples what he wants and means by true commitment and it was at a cost. He said: Nothing, not love for father or mother or even one’s own life was to take precedence over loyalty to Him. The disciples acknowledged that if God was to be primary in their lives, possessions and even social relations have to be secondary. Our love for Jesus is the key to spiritual passion.

A happy family today must make certain commitments that they keep as long as they live. In the two verses we have written above you can read clearly that you must begin by making a commitment to have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus. You must repent of your sins, ask God for forgiveness and then accept Him into your heart. If you as an individual cannot make this commitment and then be willing to serve the Lord faithfully each day then we cannot expect God to bless us with success (Proverbs 10:3) and deliver us from our enemies. (I Samuel 7:3)

Daily commitments must also be made. Every day a person has the opportunity to make many commitments. We make commitments at our work place. Children make commitments at school. We make commitments to our friends and neighbors and we make commitments to our churches. But the big question for us to consider is when we make commitments are they only words to accomplish some selfish purpose or are they truly commitments made because one really means it?

In Psalms 37:5 we are told by the Psalmist to “commit our way to the Lord.” Thus each day we put aside everything and commit our every action, both word and deed, into His hands.

A spouse must make a commitment to God and a life time commitment to his or her spouse, pledging to love and protect each other as long as they both shall live.

Then to have a happy family you must make a commitment to your children and they must make a commitment to you as parents. It must include mutual love, caring for one another, being thoughtful, listening, discussing, communicating and giving of time to one another.

One must also make a commitment to your church and to the world you live in. This commitment is based on your willingness to serve God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind. In other words you must commit to be an ambassador for Jesus in all that you do. If you are serious about your commitment to God then your words and actions must honor God.

We have shared the story before of when one of our children was in high school and very active in several sports and was student body president as well. We share this again with you because it is a good illustration that was real for us and should help any family in making commitments. She came to the place when she was “burned out” with sports because of her busy responsibilities and she wanted to quit. We reminded her that she not only had an important role on the team to play but more important she had made a commitment to her school, her coaches and her peers and because she made that commitment she now had an obligation to fulfill it. She decided not to quit and she kept all of her commitments. And we believe it was because she kept her commitments that God honored her with success and awards in all that she was involved in that year.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in Mathew 21:22.

“And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

PRAYER:

Give me the strength today to make commitments that honor You. Help me to apply our memory verse for this week to my desire to make these commitments real and lasting. May I bring each commitment to You in prayer and then give me the discipline to fulfill these commitments and to live by and honor each one. Help me to be an example to my family that they will see that the commitments I make are made with sincerity and with certainty.