BE COMMITTED
BREAD
1 And God spoke all these words: 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:1-3 (NIV)
15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (NIV)
14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:14-15 (NIV)
56 “Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. 57 May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. 58 May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers. 59 And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day’s need,60 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. 61 But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.” 1 Kings 8:56-61 (NIV)
3 And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” 1 Samuel 7:3 (NIV)
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: 6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Psalm 37:5-6 (NIV)
3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3 (NIV)
23 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” Luke 9:23-25 (NIV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Never be afraid to live for Jesus. Never be ashamed to live for Jesus. Never be apathetic in living for Jesus. Be committed.” Anne Graham Lotz
“The uncommitted life isn’t worth living.” Marshall Fishwick
“God has created me to do Him some definite service…some work which He has not committed to another.” John Henry Newman
“Christian patience is based upon the absolute, unshakeable belief that God is sovereign and that He is at work in the lives of His children. Christian patience stems from the knowledge that you will not be forgotten nor forsaken by the God to whom you have committed your soul regardless of what is happening around you.” Michael Youssef
“Lord, my trust is in You. My ways are committed to You, my plans are yielded to You, my future is dependent upon You. I know that you will not fail to fulfill Your promises in my life. I have no plans, but Your plans, no goals but Your goals, no agenda but Your agenda. I rest in you, I wait for you, I long for You. Thank You, Lord, You are so good to me.” Roy Lessin
“Our failure to readily follow His leading reflects a lack of deep confidence in His goodness. We wonder whether He is merely using us or wants to bless us. The problem with unsteady commitment is not centrally a problem of the will; it is rather a deficient belief. We simply do not believe that the God who tells us to remain committed…is good. It follows that the basic cure for weak commitment is renewed faith, not rededicated effort. Urgings to ‘love your wife and submit to your husband whether you feel like it or not’ fail to lay the axe to the root of the problem. Unless God’s goodness is clearly established as the context for obedience, such exhortations will at best keep the weeds of anger and dissension from spreading. They will not expose and rip out the hidden, flourishing root system whose flower is the ugly growth of broken promises…Obedience to God’s orders deepens our awareness of His goodness, and our awareness of His goodness provides motivation for further obedience.” Larry Crabb
“Paul dedicated himself to telling people about the cure for the plague of sin. He never allowed their relentless attacks, false accusations, or assaults on his integrity to stop him. He maintained his focus on positive living by remembering the costly price Jesus paid for the cure, as well as his own calling as God’s ambassador. ‘We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God’ (2 Corinthians 5:20). No matter how difficult our circumstances, how severe our pain, or how unbearable our life seems, we can find release from these burdens. How? By remembering that we are ambassadors of the Lord of glory and by sharing His message of reconciliation with others. When we focus on others, sharing the Good News of God’s deliverance with people tormented by fear and anxiety, our own burdens will lighten. Nothing is more uplifting. ‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation’ (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). As long as we live on this earth, we have a purpose: to be God’s messengers and to serve on His behalf. When we begin to understand this role, nothing can keep us down for very long.” Michael Youssef
“A man with the vision of God is not devoted simply to a cause or a particular issue but to God Himself.” Oswald Chambers
“We may see the evangelical faith, the faith of the Gospel, everywhere spoken against, and the apostolic message of the New Testament ridiculed. We may have to watch an increasing apostasy in the church, as our generation abandons the faith of its fathers. Do not be afraid! God will never allow the light of the Gospel to be finally extinguished. True, he has committed it to us, frail and fallible creatures. He has placed His treasure in brittle, earthenware vessels. And we must play our part in guarding and defending the Truth. Nevertheless, in entrusting the deposit to our hands, He has not taken His own hands off it.” John Stott
“Greatness is not made through one trial or one victory. It is hammered out over and over on the anvil of daily demands. Most often this work is done alone – in complete obscurity. But God sees every word, every choice, and every action. Devoted hearts are never wasted. He frequently uses the obscure, the broken, or the outcast for some of His greatest work.” Charles R. Swindoll
“Here’s what you need to know: God knows what you’re going through. He is thinking about you, and His thoughts are of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. The word future could be translated “an expected end.” You are a work in progress. And God isn’t done yet, you see. He is the author and finisher of your faith. There will be a completion. God is finishing you. And ultimately, it will be good.” Greg Laurie
“Enthusiasm always blazes within the best life — because enthusiasm comes from entheos — which literally means ‘God within.’” Ann Voskamp
“However devoted you are to God, you may be sure that He is immeasurably more devoted to you.” Meister Eckhart
“The world has yet to see what God can do through a man or a woman who is fully devoted to Him.” Henry Varley
HEART SAVOR
• God desires for His children to be devoted to Him both for our good and His glory.
• I am not to have any other gods before Him. He is to be protos (first) in my life all else far seconds.
• The creature is in dire and desperate need of the Creator and Savior and owes Him his all – whether he realizes this or not…
Beth Yoe's Sharing Bread 