commitment

Related to the recent posts on repentance is the importance of commitment. During Lent these are good things to be considering and pondering in an inventory of our lives before God. 

True commitment has a power from God if it is truly a commitment to God. Related to this is the Biblical truth of covenant. Covenant in Scripture starts with God, but it needs to be reciprocated. In other words, returned to God. Of course this is all of grace, a gift from God, something we wouldn't do on our own. But since God takes the intiative in grace, I take it that we can respond in faith. Of course there is mystery in this. 

But to get back to the point I want to make, commitment if made sincerely to God has a power in God. This is a commitment that like repentance is of little if any value at all, if after it is made it is not lived out. One has to seek to live it out by grace day after day.

Within a commitment is an entrusting of oneself to God through Christ by the Spirit. This is intensely personal, but must be lived out in community. God gives us community in Jesus in order to help us live this out. This is where that commitment is tested (beginning at home, by the way) and in a true sense maintained, through ongoing confession of sin, and accountability, as well as sharing our faith in each of our unique, gifted ways, to each other. 

Of course commitment looks beyond one's own benefit, to following Christ in mission in this world. Loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves is at the heart of all of this.

This was at the forefront of my thinking and praying yesterday. Life goes on for all of us. We need to ask ourselves about our commitment to God. Is is just one to get us through this life into the next? Or is it truly a commitment by grace everyday to really seek to follow Christ in everything? To do so in community and for mission to the world?

What would you like to say here?