COMMITMENT

I have been really challenged as of late with one word in particular, COMMITMENT.  I never thought that planting a church would be so challenging for me personally.  I have been fortunate to have been involved with a great church and pastor over the last couple of years and it has really been a catalyst to shape and form who I am today.  Even with all the success of Bayside and everything I learned and experienced there, it has not prepared me for this new adventure.

The biggest thing that I think I have learned is that talent is not or ever enough.  I know that a lot of people have talent but when the going gets tough a lot of times talented people quit.  It is the strong, the diligent and the COMMITTED who end up succeeding in life and ministry. This has been a tough challenge for me personally.  I always think of commitment as an easy thing but as Shayla and I have stepped out, quit our jobs and moved this commitment thing has started to settle in our lives.  I have asked myself probably one hundred times, “What the heck are you doing, are you crazy leaving everything that you know, the security for this new church plant” and all that I keep responding with is “I guess I am now really committed.”  See before it was just a really good idea but I could still decide that maybe this wasn’t from God and just go back to my old way of life.  Now on the other hand I am truly and fully committed.  In this process the thing that I have found is that commitment hurts.  I have yet to even experience the pain of truly planting the church but at the same time I am continually facing the reality of commitment.  I think that I truly understand to a degree what Jesus was feeling at the Garden of Gethsemane when He was praying to God to take the cup of suffering on the cross from him.  Even though he was not yet tortured and nailed to the cross he understood and felt the weight of that COMMITMENT he was making to endure the pain in the future.  The commitment he made there in the garden helped him to endure the pain, suffering and sin of the world by dying on the cross for you and I.  The thing is that the decision was made way before he was ever on the cross.

What decision do you need to make right now that is going to take commitment in the future to endure? When we make the decision now then after we have suffered through the pain of that decision there is always a resurrection of the decision where glory is revealed and freedom found but it happens way before we ever endure anything.  I am making and have made a commitment to follow Christ and His plan for my life.  That plan includes planting and pastoring Coastal Community Church here in Ft. Lauderdale.   I am committed to doing whatever it takes to help the unchurched, uncommitted and undecided people of Ft. Lauderdale become Fully Devoted Followers of Christ who are growing in their relationship with God and others, giving of their time, talent and treasure and guiding others to Christ, the church and small groups.

WHAT ARE YOU COMMITTED TO???