Christ asks us for no less than total commitment to Him. When we are wishy-washy and dabble in sin, surrendering parts of ourselves and our lives to him but holding back other parts, He is not pleased. And neither will we be. We humans are good at compartmentalizing, allowing God only into the areas of our lives we don’t care as much about or know we can’t control. But when it comes to what we really want, need, and hope for, we are afraid of giving it up to Him because we don’t know what the outcome will look like. Yet if we say we are for Him, we have to be all in for Him. There is no half-hearted Christian walk. We are either all in for Jesus or we are not in at all.
The only way we can actually make progress in our faith is if we give Christ our undivided, full attention, in all things- especially the things that mean the most to us. What is your greatest desire in life, what is it that you hold back from Christ because you are so afraid of committing it to a power greater than yourself? Because that is the thing that you need to give up, right now, or it will destroy you. I’ve learned the hard way over and over again that not committing to Christ in one way is not committing to Him at all, for if we hold back one part of our life, nothing fits together the way it should, the way that God has planned.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ~ Romans 8:28
God weaves all the seemingly unrelated moving parts of our lives together into a story that makes sense and is uniquely tailored to each of us, which is why we have to give Him all the parts of our story. If we hold back some of it, the story will not be complete. We cannot live in sin and simultaneously live in Christ- the two cannot coexist. And that’s why we feel that tension when we are not living the way we know we should. Surrendering the parts we choose to is easy; surrendering the parts we don’t want to is hard, but it’s the only way to grow. God asks for everything and our resistance draws us away from Him, even if we feel that we are committed in every other way.
All God asks for is a willing heart, a heart completely open to Him and His ways in our life, no matter what happens. Whether or not we get our way is irrelevant, because a life committed to Christ is an abundant and whole life, and it is so much better than the life we could ever possibly dream of. Surrender it all to Him in total commitment, and you will be fulfilled beyond imagination.
rhythms of grace 