Your spiritual life must not hinge on your commitment to Jesus; rather, glory in his commitment to you.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada so excited to share God’s hope with you today.
Does it mystify you that one day you can be on top of the world, in love with the Lord Jesus, soaring in his spirit, having faith to see far into eternity, and the next day, you are spiritually splat? You find yourself rock bottom, your faith dried up, and your soul as dirty and dull as dishwater. It’s always a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?! When you are on the mountaintop with Jesus, you just want to stay there, you want to be there, you want the Lord to hold you there. But then you go down off the mountain where there are angry trials and hard tests and nasty temptations.
And you know what happens, right? And it happens to me, too. In fact, it happened to the Lord's three best friends, his inner circle, his closest companions, Peter, James, and John. And it’s stated in Mark 9:2. Because there they are on quite the mountaintop; the Mount of Transfiguration. Nobody else was invited to go up on that mountain with Jesus, but there, those three intimate friends of the Lord get an up close and personal snow-blinded look at the dazzling brilliance of the Lord as he reveals himself in a way he never had before. Jesus is showing them his glory; the glory that he inasmuch left behind up in heaven but now, to these three treasured friends, he shows a side of himself that makes them drop to their knees, jaws agape, and dumb-struck with wonder.
Now, that was an experience to remember for a lifetime; a wondrous revelation that had to imprint itself deeply on the hearts of those disciples! They must’ve been struck with the astounding truth that they had just witnessed Jesus Christ in his glory, the son of God, begotten before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God. It was the kind of thing that would stick to their senses for decades to come, right? Guiding, reminding them of the majesty of the Savior they serve. But just a short time later in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus [in Mark 14]; Jesus revealed another part of himself to those same three disciples. But this time, he showed Peter, James, and John his suffering and how deeply distressed and troubled he was. Well, you know what happened next: Peter, James, and John yawned, then hit rock bottom. All that spiritual get up and go had gotten up and went.
And we are no better than they. We rise to some new level of spirituality and commit ourselves to a fresh allegiance to the Savior. Then we are bewildered at the depths to which we fall almost the next day. And so, here’s the lesson. Your spiritual life must not hinge on your commitment to Christ. That only sets you up for defeat. No doubt, it was the same for Peter, James, and John – they swore allegiance to him, but when put to the test, they failed miserably. Yes, they were committed to Christ; but they had no idea of his commitment to them. So again, our spiritual life must not hinge on our commitment to Jesus; rather, let’s glory in his commitment to you and me. Daily come to him in spiritual want and leanness. Acknowledge moment by moment that he is the one whose arms are underneath you as you rise to the mountaintop, and he is the one who preserves you as you descend to the other side. So, pray with me today, “Oh, Jesus, we don’t glory in our commitment to you; we will fail you every time. We glory in your love that sustains us. Your love and your commitment that will never fail. To God be the glory, amen.”
© Joni and Friends