Where is your commitment?

ByHal Hammons

In The Corporate Coach by James B. Miller, a book on my shelf that is left over from a long-abandoned career in sales management, James Miller discusses the role of “the twitch in your elbow” while interviewing job applicants.  Gut instinct, we might say.  And a big part of that, he says, is the commitment the applicant shows toward other activities.  If he’s a scratch golfer, he didn’t get there just with 18 holes on Saturday.  Maybe he’ll cut out of work early some days.  If he’s out on his boat every weekend, who’s to say he won’t miss a few Monday mornings?

Commitment is a character trait not everyone has.  It is to be admired.  I have little use for someone who cannot commit — a “fan” who can’t name any players on his favorite team, a “reader” who quits the book club in week two, a husband or wife who runs out at the first sign of trouble.  But the only commitment that matters, ultimately, is our commitment to Christ.  (That commitment has implications regarding marriage, obviously.  We’ll discuss Matthew 19:9 another time.)  And the stronger our other commitments are, the weaker our commitment to Jesus will be.  Too many thorns, to borrow from Mark 4:18.

How many times do we catch ourselves making excuses for inadequate service to God that are rooted in our commitment to other, lesser causes?  At what point do they become our master instead of Jesus (Luke 16:13)?  We would all agree that such things can be taken too far.  The question is, has “too far” already appeared in our rearview mirror?

Jesus rejects the prospective disciple who will not “hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life” (Luke 14:26).  He compares such a one to a king going to war without measuring his ability to pursue the battle to completion, or one who begins building a tower without the resources to finish.  If we want Jesus to make an eternal commitment to us, we must be willing to make one to Him.  

Similar Posts

The truth we know

ByHal Hammons

Enough, already.

Enough judging a man in his 50s for an isolated incident, or even several of them, that may or may not have happened when he was a teenager.

Enough judging a woman for daring to have a smile on her face at some point in time when the most important thing in her life is her allegations of being assaulted.

Enough giving credence to everyone who supports our own preconceived values and principles.  Enough dismissing and/or excoriating everyone who opposes them.

Freezing

ByMark Watson

A young woman attended a concert last week in Milwaukee, and then an afterparty.  She was wearing shorts, fishnet stockings, and a tank top.  Good party clothing, I suppose, if you don’t care about modesty or giving boys the wrong (right?) idea.  But not so great for winter in Wisconsin.  By the time she left…

Judgment

ByHal Hammons

I preached a sermon Sunday in which I mentioned how discouraged I am over people’s obsession with sports, how completely irrational and destructive behavior is permitted and even bragged about because of “team loyalty.”  Just an hour or two later, in a (probably) unrelated incident, Mark Wahlberg walked out on his beloved Patriots at the Super Bowl (they were behind 28-12 at the time) and began receiving an unceasing stream of vitriol from other fans.   

The case for not voting

The case for not voting

ByHal Hammons

I have a friend, a brother in Christ, who appears from his Facebook posts to be very much in favor of Hillary Clinton for president. I find that position appalling, astonishing, and completely irreconcilable with the life of a Christian. I thought about messaging him and asking him to explain it (that is to say, questioning his commitment to Jesus), but I knew what he would likely say — “What, so Donald Trump is any better?” And as far as non-answers go, I have to say that one is pretty good.

 

Gymnastics

ByHal Hammons

If you want to see the glorious difference between men and women (and have everyone keep their clothes on, mostly), you need look no further than a gymnastics competition.  Myself, I am not particularly a fan; I haven’t even watched Olympic competition for almost a decade.  But I know, for instance, that women do not perform on the pommel horse, parallel bars or rings.  And after watching Olympian Shawn Johnson attempt it, I know why.  The same reason I don’t.  It’s impossible.  The upper body strength is just not there.

The men don’t perform on the uneven bars or balance beam.  And I know why.  The same reason I can’t watch them try.  Physiology.  Let’s just call it physiology.

Bigger

ByHal Hammons

The story goes that Yul Brynner, career flying after the success of The King and I and The Ten Commandments, was a bit annoyed at the upstart television actor named Steve McQueen that he had brought into the production of The Magnificent Seven.  McQueen had a habit of playing with his hat, wiping his brow, basically anything to get the audience’s eyes on him while he and Brynner were in a scene.

It went both ways, though.  Brynner, several inches shorter than McQueen, arranged for small piles of dirt to be nearby for him to stand on when acting with McQueen.  McQueen took delight in kicking the dirt piles over.  Ah, the famous camaraderie of thespians!

McQueen’s antics worked, it seems.  He became one of the biggest screen stars of the 1960s.  Brynner’s career, on the other hand, trended downward more and more.  My generation knows him as much as anything for those creepy lung cancer commercials he made just before he died.

Who is “bigger”?  Men have been fighting over that vague concept for centuries.  And women have their own version of the battle; they’re just not as likely to literally kill anyone in pursuit of the blue ribbon.  “We just tease her until she develops an eating disorder,” one female TV character once observed.

But life shouldn’t be a competition for Christians. Our reward is heavenly (Hebrews 11:16).  And heaven has no limit to its capacity.  “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).  So if someone isn’t bumping us out of line for heaven, why should we worry if he insists on being “bigger” in this life?  That’s his problem.  I don’t have to make it my problem.