Commit to the Lord

Proverbs 16:3  Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

It sounds so easy.  And yet, how many of us have “committed” our plans and dreams to the Lord and, up to now, are still waiting for them to happen.  Many have given up hope, even given up on God, because we have committed to the Lord so many things, and yet they have not been fulfilled.

What does it mean to commit something to the Lord.

The word commit in Hebrew means “to roll (literal or figurative) :- commit, remove, roll (away, down)”.  An English dictionary will define the word as “Give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause”.

Many envision committing something to the Lord like assigning work to an employee.  We tell them to do something, give them instructions, and expect them to produce results.  This is why there are so many who are frustrated with God.

Committing something to God begins with recognizing Him as who He is – King.  God is not sitting in His waiting room, and then running frantically to our beck and call, taking our requests and trying so hard to fulfill them according to our expectations.  God is sitting on His throne.  He is King.  The world, our life, is in His hands.  It is He who has plans for us, and not the other way around.  For some, coming to God is saying “Lord, I have this plan of how You can bless my life”.  But for someone who recognizes who God is in his life he says “Lord, I submit to what your plan is for me”.

Jeremiah 29:11-12 (NIV)
11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This is not God promising to fulfill our plans.  This is God telling us that He has plans for us.  They are plans that will prosper us, do us good, and give us a hope and future.  Shouldn’t we be praying for these plans?

12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

To Commit means that even though we may have plans of our own, desires that we feel are right for us and will bring us good, we lay them down at the feet of our Lord and say “Lord, your will be done”.  When we do this we trust that God will work all things in our life for our good, for our success.

True success, by the way, is not earning more money, or getting the position that we want, or gaining more for ourselves.  The true success that a Christian desires is simply accomplishing what God wants for us, being where God wants us to be, being who He has planned for us to be.  That’s true success.

Acts 17:26-28 (NIV)
26 From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.'

God’s Sovereignty over Circumstances

John 11:1-6 (NIV)
1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.
3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."
5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6 Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Why does God allow seemingly “bad” things to happen in our lives?  You would think that if God truly loved us He would just allow good things, or what we commonly call “blessings”, to come upon our lives.  But in everyday experience we know this doesn’t happen.  This is why many Christians end up questioning the Lord, even turning away from Him, frustrated that He does not answer their prayer, or bless them.

Most of us, if not all, know about Lazarus and how Jesus raised him from the dead.  But not everyone is quite familiar with the circumstances that were behind this great miracle that brought glory to our Lord.

Lazarus, together with his sisters Mary and Martha, were no ordinary people.  They were people whom Jesus loved.  They obviously had a special relationship, as seen in the request sent to Jesus “Lord, the one You love is sick”.

And yet, when Jesus finds out that Lazarus was sick the story tells us that He stayed where He was for two more days.  And within these two days Lazarus dies.  If Jesus loved Lazarus, why did He allow him to die, instead of quickly rushing to his side and healing him?

We all have asked this question once, twice or many times in our life!  If God truly loves us, why did He allow this problem to come, or why is He allowing circumstances to get worse, even to seem impossible to solve!

Here is, what I believe, to be the key to understanding this.  When the request reaches Jesus, the first thing He proclaims is His purpose in the circumstance:  "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."
Right away He tells His disciples what His ultimate desire was in the circumstance of Lazarus – His glory.  God, in His wisdom and love, saw it fit to allow Lazarus to die, so that He would be glorified in the lives not only of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, but also to all who were there.

God could have healed Lazarus’ sickness.  But His raising Lazarus from the dead was what He believed would bring Him more glory.

God is sovereign over our lives.  He is in control over all that comes and goes into our everyday life – good and bad circumstances.  Why does He do that?  For one reason, and one reason alone - “it is for God’s glory, that God’s Son may be glorified through it”.

Our human hearts cannot understand this, because we are so used to thinking of our own welfare, of what we think is best.  But a Christian is not called to question his Lord, but to submit…submit to an Almighty, Sovereign, Wise and Loving God who holds his life in His hands.

And, a Christian is to desire only one thing – for God to be glorified in our lives.  If our God sees fit to glorify His name through blessing, so be it!  And, if He also sees it fit to glorify His name through a trial or hardship in our life, then so be it.  The chief end of a Christian is to bring glory to God in everything that we do!

So, if you are in a similar situation like Lazarus, where your circumstance turned from good to bad, from bad to worse, turn your hearts towards the Lord, bow before a Sovereign God who holds your life, and trust that the One who controls all things will also grant you strength and wisdom, that it may bring glory to His name and His name alone.

Bearing Fruit

John 15:16 (NIV)

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

There was a recent news item recently of a Pajero that fell to the sea at the Bredco port.  When they pulled it out inside were a man and woman - what they were doing in the Bredco port at night, well, we can only guess.
Someone asked me a question - assuming that there was sin involved, where did they go, heaven or hell?

The safest answer anyone can give is always "only God knows", which biblically is correct.  Only God knows those who are His.
2 Timothy 2:19 (NIV)
19 Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are His," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."

But notice the second part of the verse - "everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness".  Here is another biblical truth that needs serious consideration.  Many claim to be Christian, to be "children of God", but not many can claim to live lives that turn away from wickedness.

How does a Christian turn away from wickedness?  It begins with a choice.
Jesus said "you did not choose me, but I chose you...".  A truth that for some is hard to grasp - we did not choose God, it was God who chose us.  But some may say "but I prayed to receive Him".  Yes, that's true.  But that decision was made because of God's choosing you.  The reason we are Christian is because God chose us.  In other words, we chose God because He chose us.
Now what does this have to do with a walk of righteousness?

Jesus said "I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last".  Together with the choice of God was His appointment for us to bear fruit in our lives, the fruit that will last.  This is the fruit of the life of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit as later shared to us by the apostle Paul.  The fruit of righteousness.
This is why a Christian's life changes, grows, continually until the life of Christ is slowly molded into ours.  This is why we are able to walk in righteousness.  Because part of God's choosing us was the appointment to bear fruit in our lives.  There is no such thing as a fruitless Christian.

Those who receive Christ, who believe in Him as Savior, and those who display lives that turn away from wickedness, whose lives bear fruit, who know Jesus as Lord of their lives...these are the ones God has chosen to enjoy eternal life with Him.  It's a "package" deal for true believers - faith and fruit.
So it's not just those who claim to believe Christ who go to heaven, but also those whose lives display a change, a lifesyle of Christ-likeness.  The two work together, hand in hand.

So, back to the original question - the two who were found in a Pajero that fell into the sea at the Bredco port, did the go to heaven?  That's not for us to answer.  What we should be thinking of is ourselves.  Do we bear the signs of being true believers, chosen by God and appointed to bear fruit?