COMMIT

“Screw your courage to the sticking place,” says Lady Macbeth when Macbeth has second thoughts on their plan. He is wavering and she calls him to commit. When I read these words, I can literally feel something flex inside my chest, not physically but in the deepest part of my spirit. I get what she is saying. It’s like my inner man stands up taller and my heels dig in deeper at the word commit. I am committed to Christ. 

Jesus asks us to commit to Him and His kingdom by faith. That is such a simple request but a tall order for humans. Example A- the Israelites. They were miraculously set free from over four hundred years of slavery and then, after a short trip into the wilderness and the unknown, wished to return to captivity because it is what they knew and understood. No faith needed to know they would get a ration of food from the Egyptians. Meanwhile this wilderness living requires trust in an invisible God! They wanted to live in bondage and what they could predict rather than live by faith, trusting God to lead them into the unknown of their freedom.

Do you need to see and understand everything? Do you need proof from God to believe? It may surprise you to hear this but proof won’t connect you to God or enable you to believe. Only faith will. The Israelites saw God do many signs and wonders for which, make no mistake in my message, He deserves praise and glory! But those things that they saw did not keep them trusting in the wilderness. And when God sent them into the promised land to see their inheritance and discover their destiny in Him, they were not able to receive a good report. God had once split the seas for them, but “now faith is” and that was then. They had their own perspective, not God’s. Therefore they were stuck as grasshoppers, having no faith now for what God had for them ahead. 

God gave to every man a measure of faith when He created us. He has done His part. To activate our faith is as easy as a choice. I don’t mean that the choice is always easy. But it is estimated that the average adult makes over 35,000 decisions a day so we are familiar with the process. Some choices are pretty easy, like whether or not to eat breakfast or what to wear to work. Some of them are much more difficult, like when to say yes to a marriage proposal or whether to accept or decline a job offer in another city. Similarly, to trust Jesus and activate our faith can be easy or hard but in the end, it is as simple as making the choice and committing to it. 

Faith is like a seed that is planted and activated to grow and grow and grow! For it to reach its full potential and bear fruit, it must be committed. James says this in Chapter 1 verses 6-8:

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;  he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” 

James understood that if you don’t commit to your faith then you will be pushed around by all your circumstances and nothing will hold you. It’s like planting a seed then pulling it up when it looks like a drought then trying to plant it again when you see the rain is coming. It’s not that God doesn’t want to trust you with what you’re asking for, but that He is still working with you on getting reestablished after that doubting pulled you out. He loves you too much to put the weight of fruit-making on you until you can commit.  

To commit to Christ is to commit to a willingness to uncertainty; to believe and not doubt. Oswald Chambers said, “to be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth.” He goes on to say that we should have breathless expectation in that uncertainty! We can choose to have faith in God’s goodness. We can believe, no matter what, that He’s a good Father. We can commit to the truth that in all things, He’s only good.

To commit to Christ is to not need to know what is coming because you know that God knows. To commit to Christ is to not need an explanation for the things that happen that we do not understand or dislike because we know that God has a plan. In hard times that sticking place of commitment inside of my chest holds me tight to the God that works all things out for my good. It pulls me to worship Him, remembering who He is, and not complain about what I see or what may be. It compels me to pray, not to change my circumstances, but to change my perspective so that I can gain all that He has for me in the promise of what is ahead. And not just the promise of what is in it for me, but in my purpose of what He has for others through me. On a day when there was not enough food for thousands of people, Jesus could take what one person had to offer and satisfy everyone, with leftovers besides. Someone had to commit by faith, willing to be hungry themselves, with breathless expectation of what Jesus could do. 

Hebrews 11:27 says of Moses, “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”  Whatever the obstacles we may be facing we need not fear, we can trust God. We are only asked to believe in Him who we do not see. This commitment is our sticking place. It’s how we will endure! Commit to have hope in the joyful expectation of our good God in all things. Flex your faith muscles today! And dig in and stay planted if you think you see drought… the rain is coming!