{"id":4790,"date":"2012-11-08T16:33:52","date_gmt":"2012-11-08T21:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/fully-committed"},"modified":"2012-11-08T16:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-11-08T21:33:52","slug":"fully-committed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/fully-committed.html","title":{"rendered":"Are you like the chicken or the pig?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pig“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV84).<\/p>\n

Have you heard the story about the trip that the chicken and pig took together? No? Well…<\/p>\n

…Once upon a time, a chicken and a pig took a trip together. And after many miles and hours on the road, they got hungry. Finally, the sharp\u2011eyed chicken spotted a restaurant. Approaching the door they saw a sign which read, “Ham and Eggs: Our Specialty!”<\/p>\n

“Hold it!” shouted the pig.<\/p>\n

“What’s the matter?” asked the chicken.<\/p>\n

“Plenty. All they want from you is a little compromise, but they’re asking me for a total commitment!”<\/p>\n

That’s a silly little story, yet many of us are like the chicken when it comes to our commitment to God. We want to offer a “little compromise,” but God wants our “total commitment.” As the Scripture above says, God is looking for “those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps the reason that many in our world today aren\u2019t thriving is that they are afraid of commitment. They don’t want to be committed to anything. They don’t want to commit to a job, to a long term investment, to joining a church or even to a life-long marriage.\u00a0Americans have become commitment adverse.<\/p>\n

If there is any operational attitude today it’s “I want to keep my options open. I don’t want to be tied down!\u201d\u00a0 It seems that the only thing we\u2019re committed to is being uncommitted!<\/p>\n

That’s tragic because you can’t thrive without making commitments. You can’t buy a house, you can’t get married, you can’t even get a credit card without making a commitment. Nothing great happens without making a commitment.\u00a0 If we go through life without making any commitments, we just drift without focus.<\/p>\n

This lack of commitment for Christians in America usually crops up most noticably in how we manage our possessions and money. Like the Christian knights of old who held their sword hands up out of the water when baptized, Christians in America hold up their wallets! Sure, we’ve committed everything to God, except for our stuff of course.<\/p>\n

Essentially, we are saying to God,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s my money and I\u2019ll do what I want with it!\u201d<\/p>\n

If we want to do more than just survive, if we want to really thrive, we must commit our finances, our stuff, and our very lives fully to God!<\/p>\n

Stop holding back. Commit yourself fully and thrive!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV84). Have you heard the story about the trip that the chicken and pig took together? No? Well… …Once upon a time, a chicken and a pig took a trip together. And<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-4790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=4790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}