Rejoice:
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There’s a natural part of our being that desires commitment, devotion, or A TRUE display of love from those who we are in a relationship with. If you look at how you expect that display of love from whoever it is in your mind I think you’ll find that you don’t require one set action, or a list of things to be done, you just want to see devotion.
Well this natural desire is reflective of God’s nature. We read in Scripture: (Matthew 6:24) “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. We read things like this and we compartmentalize them. We read how we cannot serve two masters yet we notice that follow up verse about money and we miss the principle here.
The fact is, you cannot serve both God and *insert anything here*. Yet I feel many of us are still trying to serve God and self. We have setup our lives to be committed to God part of the time and committed to ourselves the other part. Evaluate your Sabbath decisions:
Whatever day it is you wake up, perhaps even at a different time because you have setup your schedule to do your Sabbath worship. Then you prepare to go to service. You set things up to assure you’ll make it on time. You likely assure you repent and ask for forgiveness for all the things you have been doing that you KNOW are wrong to make sure you are clean. You may prepare your heart for meeting the Lord on a deeper level. Then you go to service, planning on either getting there early to fellowship or staying a little later to fellowship. Once you arrive you pour your heart out to Him and experience a great relational experience with Him. You read, relate, respond, and rejoice. Then you leave convicted and encouraged (hopefully) seeking change. You head home HOPEFULLY experiencing some sort of shift in your life, even if it is only momentarily.
Then you wake up the next day and what do you do? Do you do a similar thing? Do you commit your first moments to the Lord? Do you commit yourself to Him, assuring everything is clean? Though getting prepared to go to work or whatever you do on a day to day basis, do you seek the Lord’s guidance on what you should be doing that day? Do you communicate with your King? Do you read, relate, respond, and rejoice? Do you find yourself growing?
In 1 kings 18:21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing. Are you experiencing growth and change on Sunday but Monday through Saturday you remain unchanged? Perhaps you are unchanged entirely from week to week. Well, are you following the Lord? Are you fully committed or are you still splitting your devotion?
I say to you: How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if you are God, follow yourself. God desires someone who is committed, and fully devoted to Him for this is a major aspect of love. Yet we live our lives mostly committed to ourselves and sharing just a small time with Him each week. Again I ask: How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if you are God, follow yourself.
Respond:
Spend 1 minute thanking God that even if you are not fully committed to Him you are still saved and He is gracious. Thank Him that regardless of your inabilities or lack of devotion He still loves you as much as He ever will. Thank Him that His love will never be more for you than it is right now because He loves unconditionally. Then spend 2-3 minutes asking Him what being truly devoted to Him would look like.
Relate:
You should have someone you are able to talk with about your devotions, growth, and commitment to the Lord. Ideally you have someone you are walking through your spiritual journey with, not just the person who is discipling you. If not, find a person. Find someone who can hold you accountable and track your progress. You need commitment and if no one is holding you accountable it is easy to falter.
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