Faithfully Devoted
By Tim Hunter
Flaming passion. Rock-solid faithfulness. Which is better? More specifically, as a follower of Jesus, which should we aim for? To be sure, the story of the missionary who gave it all for Jesus - risking their own life - does something deep within my heart. Yes, I want to have a flaming hot passion for Jesus. I want to be on fire for the fame of His name. However, something deep within me also sees the grandfather who has faithfully walked with Jesus his entire life and yearns for the same to be said of my life decades from now. This is the heart behind faithful devotion. To take two visions of life: all-out, heart-inflamed, life-encompassing, soul-capturing devotion to Jesus, and couple it with daily, uncelebrated, consistent, disciplined, rock-solid faithfulness. This is what faithful devotion is.
Scripture paints both of these pictures when it comes to life with God. Balance is something that scripture seems to have a good handle on. If you are like me you have observed two kinds of tendencies within our modern church culture. First, passion with no faithfulness - think hands raised, tears running down your face, but no ability to live out the gospel in the intricacies of daily life. Many of us love God, want to live for Him, but do not understand how to see our lives formed around our passion. Next, faithfulness with no passion. For this one, I think of the people you know in your life who know all the correct doctrine, they are there every time the church doors are open, but if you were to look at their life there seems to be no real love for Jesus. Many of us may be in this space. Knowing about God, serving others, but lacking true, all-out devotion. Can we be both? Can we be filled with both faithfulness and devotion?
We see both of these concepts in scripture. Jesus says in Matthew 22:37 - “You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind.” This is Jesus’ response to what the greatest commandant in all of scripture is. Full out devotion to God in all of your life with all that you have. Think passion. Devotion.
But faithfulness is also of strong currency in the economy of God. A few chapters later in Matthew, Jesus gives an entire parable centered around faithfulness. The faithful servant at the end of life is given this appraisal from the Master: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” It is clear that God values faithfulness, consistency. The question then remains: how do we go about living with both? I believe that in order to see both faithfulness and devotion in our life? I believe there are two parts to this: seeing the beauty of Christ, and being continually formed into the image of Christ.
Vision of the Beauty of Christ
In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul unpacks how it is that sanctification takes place; i.e being shaped to look more like Jesus. In the first part of the verse, he says, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord.” Devotion does not start with action, it does not start with doing, preaching, teaching, serving, learning, or going. Devotion starts with seeing. Our lives can only live up to our vision of Christ. So much more can be said about this verse, but the simple principle that I want to mention here is that a vision of the beauty of Christ - his limitless love, his staggering power, his otherworldly compassion, perfect holiness, ultimate transcendence, his endless faithfulness, the list goes on eternally - is the only true way to see change on a heart and soul level. We cannot hope to be devoted to someone that we do not know, and we cannot know someone that we have not beheld. We must have a vision of Jesus if we want to be devoted to Him.
Formation into the Image of Christ
This verse goes on to explain what happens when we have a clear vision of Christ. “...are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” The way that our vision of Christ works itself out is through daily transforming us more and more into his image. I like to say it this way: the more you look at Jesus, the more you will look like Jesus. This is the faithfulness part. This is a Holy Spirit produced formation into the image of the one that we are devoted to. When we see Jesus for who He is, and when we open ourselves up to being formed into who He is we began the journey of being faithfully devoted. This is a formation that is not relegated to a once-weekly worship service, or annual conference. This is something that God does in the heart of the disciple on a minute by minute basis. Being shaped into the image of Jesus is not just a Sunday morning at 11:00 event, but has the power to change the way you live your Mondays. This is what we long to see and help you with. How can we live with radical faithfulness in the ordinary moments of life? How can we intentionally open ourselves up to the Spirit of God to be formed continually to look more like Jesus in all of life?
So, flaming passion. Rock-solid faithfulness. Let’s aim at both. Come along as we explore what it means to be faithfully devoted to Jesus.