Upside Down Commitment

Ever hear the phrase, “You need to commit your life to Christ”?

I have… used to hear it and say it all the time. It was the prescription for spiritual health.

Struggling with anxiety? You need to commit your life to Christ. Emotionally gutted because of betrayal or treachery? You need to commit your life to Christ. Not sure where you will go when you die? You need to commit your life to Christ.

So often did I hear this idea it seemed it was a mantra of some kind. I think I get what those who used the expression (and maybe still do) were trying to convey – We need to trust in Jesus.

True enough.

But trust is not some kind of secret, key ingredient to finding happiness, spiritual or not. Trust is a response to a person. And I respond with trust to a person I know.

“And here’s what I’ve come to know of Jesus…

He has, is, and always will be completely, unreservedly, totally committed to you.”

Whether you obey him or not.
Whether you like him or not.
Whether you trust him or not.

In fact, so loyal is his love for humankind – that it delivers a severity of wrath ferocious in its’ intent to destroy all that comes between him and his Beloved.

And he gives his very life to make it so.

The Light of the Cosmos took the darkness of an entire planet – our disobedience, betrayal, hatred, indifference, all of the venom festering in our broken lives – and met it face to face by becoming one with us.

This “confrontation” irrevocably exploded in violence when we, fully embracing our darkness, murdered our one true Friend.
Death tried to kill Life… Darkness tried to extinguish the Light…

And what did he do with our response of madness and rage when he bore it in his body hanging on a tree? Your friend has judged it and condemned it. Even more, he has forgiven us, the ones who brought it to the table and reveled in such insane darkness. Every… single… one of us. This confrontation becomes his ultimate means of healing the brokenness of our lives so that we might come to love all that is good and hate anything that is not.

So, maybe we shouldn’t be trying to commit ourselves to him. Maybe we should humbly receive his absolute and unwavering commitment to us. And as we do, we will find ourselves responding with trust to his loyal love.