If you really want to forge a new life you must be 100% committed to the vision that you have created for yourself and for your life. I promise you that there will be days that you will not feel much like putting in the effort to live this life of righteousness and health. Maybe you had a bad night of sleep or there is some tension in your work or family life that is wearing on you. Those are the days that you must be even more committed to being the man or woman that you have designed. What we are talking about here is character. Character is who you are always. Unlike an actor who can play multiple roles and have different characters, we are living a real life that must be the same no matter what is happening. This commitment must carry over to home life, work life, friend life, church life and the life you exhibit in the community. The challenge is to be this person of character all of the time. In my life I have known people who were different at home than they were in public. This created a distortion in the minds of their friends and family. This uncertainty, consciously or subconsciously, caused them to hold back some of their support. More importantly, when we live incongruent lives our very soul cries out and disrupts the direction of our life. You might still look like a success. The world may be applauding you. But God who knows our inmost being will be calling us up to be the best version or ourselves. He knows our potential.
This incongruence can only happen when we are not 100% committed to learning and growing into the character and person of Christ. Remember that Luke tells us that Jesus grew physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. If Jesus had to be committed to growing it would be arrogant to believe that we don’t have to.
Consider Jesus, He could have called legions of angels to protect Him from the cross. If He was only 99% committed to the mission that the Father gave Him, it is unlikely He would have made it to the cross. Jesus was all in. Walking this earth, He was physically and verbally assaulted consistently throughout His ministry. He healed people and received flack from the leaders. Jesus taught and consistently received push back. His commitment was to keep doing the next right thing. In His mind, He had to be 100% obedient to the Father’s direction.
Let me contrast that with King Saul. On one occasion God commanded him to destroy the Amalekites and all that belonged to them. With great passion, Saul pulled it off. However, He was only 99% committed to obeying God. He kept a portion of the sheep and kept alive the Amalekite king. Samuel confronted Saul and in essence said that Saul was weighed in the scales and found wanting. Saul did 99% was that not good enough? No, it was not. My friends, let us jump all in toward the new life that awaits us. Let us forge a solid, antifragile, world changing life.
