Committing To Our Relationship To The Lord
I don’t know about you, but I cannot think of anything in my life that goes well due to my lack of commitment to it. In fact, life just doesn’t work that way, right? Many things in our lives go well precisely because we were committed to them.
And so, think about relationships, for example. I don’t know when lost you heard of a dating or marriage couple claimed that things were going great because one or both partners were actually not committed to making it work.
Or think about work; you’ve just landed that one important client and you managed to do so because that client perceived that your company, or your firm, will lack the commitment needed for the project.
Or perhaps, you’re busy studying and preparing for that one important board exam. I just don’t think you’ll do well because you weren’t committed to studying for the exam.
So, life just doesn’t operate that way and the same happens with our relationship with God. It just will not work if we are not committed to it – leaning in with every bit of effort we have, to make a relationship with God work. And that’s not because God has commitment issues, but the problem is actually with us. We lack, at times, the commitment that’s needed to actually fully experience the goodness of God that he’s offering to us in intimate relationship with him.
Our culture also actually really conditions us, you know, when it comes to our sense of commitment to God. And so, make no mistake: the culture you’re part of actually influences the way that you see and approach certain things.
And so, two negative ways that our culture is currently really conditioning us when it comes to our sense of commitment to God:
Number one: that commitment to God shouldn’t cost you too much. The commitment to God shouldn’t cost you too much. Are you kidding? The Jesus who said, “if anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves, pick up the cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)
Does he sound like that he believes that commitment to God will come a little cost? And yet, we have domesticated Jesus’s words here. In the busyness of our culture, where there’s little margin left after we have served the agendas of self, our family, and our work. There’s little time, energy, money, happiness, satisfaction, fellowship that we can give towards our pursuit and commitment to God.
And that’s not because we necessarily think that commitment to God should come at little cost. No we’re just allowing our culture to actually condition us functionally to believe that we can commit to God at little cost.
The second way our culture is actually influencing the way we commit to God, our sense of commitment to God, is that commitment to God shouldn’t weigh on you too much. By weigh, I do not mean as a burden, but I mean as a sense of responsibility.
When I am responsible for something, I feel the weight of its importance over me. And so, Jesus will go on to say, “For whoever will choose to save their lives will lose it, but whoever loses their lives for me and the sake of the gospel will save it. For what Good is it for a man to gain the whole world and get lose or forfeit their soul or what can a person give in exchange for their soul?” (Mark 8:35 – 37)
Sadly, in our culture today, too many things are made to be more important than our soul before God. And so, we don’t always carry the right level of weight and responsibility in our commitment to God so that we would experience the fullness that we need, as we prioritize our soul before God.
Also added to that, is the sense or the spirit of a culture of, “I don’t necessarily have to,” which then leads us to actually shirk from responsibility and the sense of accountability.
And so, that spirit can spill over into our walks with God as well. And so, I don’t necessarily have to give a certain percentage of my income or anything for that matter to the church. I don’t necessarily have to share my faith. I don’t necessarily have to attend my church’s Sunday gathering. I don’t necessarily have to serve at that Sunday gathering. I don’t necessarily have to hold this particular doctrine or that particular practice over my sexuality. I don’t necessarily have to… Fill in the blank.
Listen, commitment to God isn’t a negotiation over things we don’t necessarily have to do but it is actually the joyous shouldering of what must rightly be weighing on our soul before the living God.
It Is Decision Time
And so then, it is decision time in Hebrews as to where you will stand in your commitment to God. Will you wholeheartedly pursue what he has to offer to your soul?
Let’s read Hebrews 4 as the writer writes in the first 13 verses,
“Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.[a] 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:1 – 13)
And so, we’ve been looking at Hebrews 3 and 4, at this question: “Can one lose their salvation?” We saw in Hebrews 3, that since the question involves both are inward disposition of our heart before God and the fruit of our lives, that we ought to hold a tension over the question.
And so, on the one hand, no one can know for sure what only God sees in the heart of somebody, but we can observe for sure what God does in the life of someone. So therefore, we cannot take God’s place in judgment of one another’s salvation, but we must take our place in encouragement of one another to live it out.
So be slow to judge one another on our salvation, but quick to exalt one another to live it out in faithfulness.
Do You Believe In The Goodness Of The Father?
Now having established that from chapter 3, when we come to chapter 4, we are confronted with this question: Do I believe in the goodness of God? Do I believe in the goodness of God?
And so, in other words, what do you believe is God’s predisposition towards me? Or what do I feel is God’s posture towards me?
Now my guess is, for those who are for many of us watching this it does is that we might fall in one of these two camps: that on the one hand, we are actually we are actually indifferent at that question. You don’t pause long enough to actually think about the question hard. And so perhaps you know the answer, and can work it out from the Scriptures, but you don’t allow that answer to you really sit deep into your heart, and then leading to a transformed life as a result.
On the other hand, some of us may actually be despondent at that question. Your predisposed idea of how God acts towards you is one of bankruptcy. And so that somehow, you’re in arrears of your payments to God in order to secure his favour over your life, and so then you live your life trying to catch up on what you owe God which can be so discouraging for your soul. Why? Because you just intuitively know that no amount of payments before God will actually lead you to actually pay enough to actually secure his favour over your life.
And so then, listen, if we are either indifferent or despondent at the question, “What is my fundamental belief of how God is predisposed to act towards me?” Indifference or despondency at that particular question will lead you on your journey of salvation to be riddled with a lack of assurance over your salvation.
Because, you see, it should never be in question that your God is good in how he acts towards you. You should never question that. You should actually have a secure conviction of the goodness of God over your life which then leads to great assurance of his salvation as well, as well.
By the goodness of God, I do not mean that God in his goodness/ the goodness of God will become some form of universalism that saves everyone no matter their commitment before God. No, but that in his goodness, God grants everyone the opportunity to enter his rest.
How Good Is Your God?
You got to see just how good your God is in giving you every opportunity to turn towards him so that, by laying hold of what he is extending to you, you will experience great assurance of your salvation. And so the question is, how good is your God? How good is your God?
This one, “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest stills is still stands…” (Hebrews…
