To Overcome Go All Out – Part One
The Lord wants us to serve Him, rather He gives us the privilege to serve Him. However, man does so with the reserve of the man who prayed, “Lord I want to serve you, use me, but mostly in a consultant capacity.
About the only form of commitment really being upheld today by our society is a deep commitment to one’s self. Little wonder this past generation has been labeled the “me” generation and the current one is focused on “whatever,” that is, anything goes.
Commitment is serious business to God and should be to us.
God has the capacity to shield His own. Approaching His crucifixion Jesus said He could have called twelve legions, that’s 72,000 angels. In one Old Testament incident one angel killed 185,110 people. That means at the moment Jesus had at His command the kill power of 1,332,000,000 (1 billion, 332 million).
God has the power, but He also has the love and power to know how to use it. It is not always as a champion on a white horse always rushing in at the last minute to rescue His servant.
The Apostle Paul, a man who suffered greatly put in perspective how God works. He wrote, “But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel” (Phil. 1: 12). He apparently believed, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.
George MacDonald, the man C. S. Lewis described as his “master” wrote: “This is a sane, wholesome, practical, working faith: first, that it is a man’s business to do the will of God; second, that God takes on Himself the special care of that man; and third, that therefore, that man ought never to be afraid of anything”.
There are two elements often linked in Scripture: “trust” and “commitment”.
Once a person trusts Him, commitment comes naturally. Such was Bill Borden, heir to the Borden Company, abandoned his family fortune and spent his young life as a missionary among the Indians. He died an early death. In his diary were these words: “No reserve, no retreat, no regret.” He indeed was all in.
Trust and commitment always leads to action as noted I Philippians 2: 12, “working out our salvation with fear and trembling!” Phil. 2:12
The text does not say “for” your salvation. The term is used in the sense of a math teacher proposing a math problem and telling the class to work it out, meaning carry it to its logical and correct conclusion. Carry your salvation to its logical conclusion by trusting Him and committing your life to Him in service.