Commitment - All Or Nothing
Douglas F. Parsons
4/29/98
Commitment - All Or Nothing
David Lloyd-George once remarked,
The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
The story is told of the little boy who cut off his puppy’s tail an inch at a time to keep from hurting it so badly by cutting the whole tail off at once. These two situations illustrate the tragic error of many persons with respect to Christ.
Following Christ is an
all-or-none commitment. Trying to accept Christ without total commitment to him is like trying to leap a chasm in two jumps - you leave one bank and miss the other. Jesus said it like this:
He that is not for me is against me. The Lord will not share a divided heart. He will not have a duplex for a throne. Look to Christ, commit your life, your talents, your service, your all. Look not for a stone or an island halfway. There is none.
Cutting off the puppy’s tail an inch at a time illustrates the other difficulty people are having with commitment to Christ. Commitment to one thing means forsaking other things.
You cannot serve both God and Mammon. You cannot hold both God and the world. Sometimes a person tries to give up the world like the times the boy cut off his puppy’s tail - an inch at a time. The result is the same - the pain is multiplied.
• Make a
once-for-all decision.
• Leave the world.
• Come to Christ.
• Commit your all to Him.
You can’t leap a chasm in two jumps. Leave the shores of sin decisively and with finality. Hold nothing back. You will not have regret. You will be rewarded.
—Douglas F. Parsons
(From Dynamic Living in Difficult Days
Used by permission of Star Bible)
