Our lack of commitment is killing our relationships with others and God.
Check this out:
Failure to Commit Will Destroy Me
How should we respond?
I think the article was very well written. However, I think the response will be different for every person. As we are all at various levels of commitment already.
The bible says:
Mat 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
There is a reward from God for commitment, as we can see in the above scripture. That reward in the natural for prayer is good relationships with others, and our families, which was the focus of the article. Prayer preserves us from sin (sin being that which essentially harms others) as Jesus said:
Mar 14:38 And he said to them, "Keep watch, and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Yet there is a deeper level of comitment to God, it is as follows:
Heb 12:4 For in your struggle against sin you have not yet had to resist to the point of being killed.
Amazingly enough, there are levels of comittment, and one of those levels is to give every thing for Jesus, to the point of truly laying down our physical lives.
Mar 10:38-39 Jesus said to them, "You don't know what you are asking for. Can you drink the cup of suffering that I must drink? Can you be baptized in the way I must be baptized?" "We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink the cup I must drink and be baptized in the way I must be baptized.
As you can see above to have a position of honour in heaven you must suffer. There are various levels in heaven, as Jesus said there are those that are first now but will be last in heaven, and there are those how are last now but will truely be first.
Mat 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If any of you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, carry your cross, and follow me.
But here is the rub, you don't have to suffer excessively to be a Christian, Jesus suffered for us, so we can have liberty. As the bible says "we have been called to liberty", and we know we are saved by grace.
But to receive a place of honor in heaven Jesus has determined we must "share in His sufferings", but as the bible terms it to have a "greater resurrection", we must suffer with Christ.
Me I am a bit of a coward, I know I am saved, but I don't like to suffer. Sure I will be saved. But in heaven, I will be at a lowly status. To get closer to Jesus we must truely be prepared to be made the fool of for his name sake, despised, rejected, a person of sorrows. Only then can Jesus really say, I knew you intimately.
I am sure there is no one here who is this silly, but I will say it. We do not get Christs approval by inflicting harm upon our selves, i.e. self harm. Honor comes with "resisting sin to the point of death", i.e. extending our selves so hard against Satan that man injures us. And we don't do anything stupid to try to get man to hurt us, that is not God, God appoints the season.
John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
There are various ways to do this, spend time in prayer for others rather than doing what we enjoy. Yet we should never condemn another for enjoyment of life, it is also a gift from God, found in Christ.
Ecc 9:7-9 Go ahead---eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful. It's all right with God. Always look happy and cheerful. Enjoy life with the one you love, as long as you live
But if we want to love others, we need to be prepared to lay down our adjenda for God's. Fasting is another way to serve others in prayer. But the whole concept, is like giving financially in the bible. We are not to do anything under compulsion, but willingly, and our reward will be according to what we give to God of our time, heart, and resources, and you may not like this said, but how much we are prepared to suffer physically in our bodies (note here I am not referring to fasting harming us, we should never fast to the point of physical harm), I am referring to man harming us. Again not self harm, but a predetermined choice before God of how much we want to give of our selves to God, allowing him to determine the time and place that we suffer. Christ knew he would suffer, He choose it, so we could live.
Please note, and I stress this very firmly, you don't earn your salvation through suffering. As a Christian, you have evry right to enjoy your life, with in the bounds of God's word. You can enjoy your hobbies, families, and friends. And even the miraculous working of God's power comes as a gift.
Gal_3:5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
The answer is the hearing of faith, or faith in God's love, births miracles, and salvation, not your suffering. Jesus loves you as you are, you don't need to prove anything. But to be truely honored before God (In the resurrection) requires comittment, at deeper levels.
