What comes to mind when you think “commitment”? Does a person come to mind? A philosophy? A belief?
How about with faith? What comes to mind when you think about one with committed faith?
In the book of James, James shares with us a couple of examples of people with committed/risk-taking faith. They have a faith that goes beyond just saying they believe in God (because the demons believe… and yet they tremble in fear – see James 2:19).
One of the stories James shares is about Abraham.
The man had committed faith. He was committed to his relationship with God.
As the story goes, the LORD asks Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, on the altar. We don’t know if there was hesitation on Abraham’s part, but all we do know is that he followed-through with what God asked him to do. And as he was about to kill his son on the altar, the LORD provided a lamb to be slain in the place of Isaac.
Check out the LORD’s response to Abraham’s committed faith:
Commitment isn’t easy. In fact, commitment will cost us something. We live in a day where commitment does not remain because when it comes to paying the price we’ve been asked to pay, or we said we’d pay, we bail out.
You’d better believe that Abraham was hurting inside… maybe confused… maybe a bunch of “why’s?” But regardless of the cost to him personally, he was willing to lay all of that down because of his commitment to his relationship with God.
In our lives, we can’t point our fingers at those who are not followers of Christ and say “look at them, they’re so uncommitted” when half the time true commitment is not lived out and does not remain in our own lives.
We, the Church, the Body of Christ must live commitment. We must have a commitment to our faith that remains. We must have a commitment to relationships that remains. We must have a committed love that remains.
Notice that all the nations of the world were blessed because of Abraham’s committed faith. When we live out commitment, when we have faith and love that remains, it will affect those around us… even the nations!
