When you serve in a leadership position in an organization, your term usually expires in 6 months or maybe a year. During that time, you have the opportunity to serve others and to grow personally. It’s important to give it your all. You made a commitment. You need to honor that commitment.
How well do you keep your commitments?
Not all commitments have an expiration date. When you commit to being a parent, you are always going to be a parent for as long as you both shall live. The same goes for marriage – or at least it is supposed to be that way.
When you accept Jesus as your Savior, you are committing to trusting Him for your salvation. You are also saying that you want to follow Him for the rest of your life. Do you know, really know, what that means?
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels.
Luke 9:23-26
When you choose to follow Jesus, you strive to continually choose what Jesus wants you to do. You live for Him.
Often, we want to make choices based on our emotions, what we desire – lust after – at the time, or what others have done. Our emotions can lead us astray. They often blind us to the truth of a situation and cannot be trusted. When we base our choices on what we desire or lust after, we are not necessarily doing what Jesus would have us to do. When we base our actions on what others have done, we risk being vengeful.
The only measuring stick we need is Jesus. We simply need to follow Him.
Will you stand in the face of persecution? Are you willing to lose your life for Jesus’ sake? As you pick up your cross daily, persecutions will come. Should you walk weak-kneed like a newborn foal or stumble as is common to man, get back up. Repent. Dust yourself off. Pick up your cross and go again. Continue to strive to follow Jesus.
No one has a perfect walk. Exercising your faith is a lot like exercising your muscles. The more you use it, the stronger you will become. Your walk will be straighter, and your faith deeper.
Ultimately, those trials in life that you overcome will give you what you need to let God work through you to help others.
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to look at what you have overcome, and where you need to trust Jesus more. Remember, a true commitment to Jesus is a commitment forever. Pick up your cross daily, and stand for Jesus. Be encouraged. The trials you overcome become points of ministry where God can use you to help others.