"The Just Are Committed"

There is one thing that is really amiss in our Christian lives today, and that is commitment. For the life of a Christian, this is the one thing which really should be most prevalent in our lives; but yet, it is seemingly the first thing which is so easily abandoned. Sometimes it is not even noticed when it has fled away; but like Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" And so it is; we do not even realize that we have become lacking in our commitment, until it is too late. Whether it is our commitment to our spouse, to raising our children in the Lord, to our employer, to our church leadership, or even to the Lord; it can really come so subtly and unnoticed; and before we know it, our heart is hardened to the fact that it has even happened. But it all begins with one unchallenged question: What if? What if this is not the right one for me?; What if these would be better off?; What if I were the one in charge?; What if they are doing wrong?; What if God...; I think you get my meaning. True commitment would respond to any of those questions with a sharp rebuke, but it is so much easier to ponder the question, and think, 'No harm done in thinking'. But that is not the case; because a lack of commitment starts in our mind, and then settles in our heart. And before you know it, you are saying and doing those things which show an uncommitted heart. Usually, the first real sign of an uncommitted heart, is the desire to find agreement; which is our need to feel justified in our reasoning. For example: If we are pondering the thought of leaving our spouse, we will begin to look at their flaws, and start comparing what we have, to what we think we should have; or comparing what they are, to what we think that they should be. And then we begin looking to others for the picture of perfection which we have established in our minds. It is not hard to see how this can lead to a heart that is not only uncommitted, but it can also create in us, a heart that desires change. In reality, there is only one thing which needs to be changed, and that is our heart! One of the definitions for 'The Just who live by Faith' is to be steadfast, which means to have a heart that does not waver. So at the first sign of wavering, we must rebuke those thoughts and become that much more committed. Love is a commitment, not a feeling or an emotion; yet we will let our feelings become a barometer for our love when we have abandoned our commitment; Why is that? It is because after our commitment has been dissolved, feelings and emotions are all that is left; which really means that all that is left is an unstable relationship; which is what feelings and emotions are: unstable! "For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." (1 Peter 4:17-19)