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Commitment is something that is not taken very seriously in many areas of peoples lives any more. From cell phone contracts to marriages, no one wants to have commitment to anything or anyone. (It is almost easier to get out of a marriage than it is a cell phone contract!) But if you desire to live for God you have to have commitment to Him and to His ways. Commitment means you are committed no matter what happens, good or bad. You stay the course no matter how rough the seas may get. You continue living for God and doing His will no matter how hard it sometimes gets. Jesus said in the middle of describing perilous times of the end in Matthew 24:13 "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." In order for us to make it to Heaven, there must be some "enduring". That means there must be commitment to God. Too many times, people give up on living for God when the road gets rocky and times get hard. My friends, that's when we need God the most and need to draw closer to Him than ever before.
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We recently held the dedication service for our new building and what a service we had! Bro Bryan Parkey preached a fantastic and powerful message and many friends from the Missouri and Arkansas Districts were in attendance. As I reflect on the service, I began to think about dedication. We dedicated our building to the Kingdom of God and to serve our community. All well and good. But what about the true "temple" of God. Paul reminds the congregation at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 3:16, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" So if we dedicate a building to the service of the Kingdom and communities, shouldn't we also dedicate the temple, meaning ourselves? And I believe that unlike a dedication for a building, we should dedicate our temple to the Lord each and every day, if not multiple times per day. That would serve as a great reminder as to what we are truly to be doing with our lives.
According to World English Dictionary, the definition of dedication is not only "a ceremony in which something, such as a church, is dedicated", but also "complete and wholehearted devotion". |
CLAY RISNERpastor@refugeachurch.com 
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