Stop Rededicating Your Life to Christ
I grew up going to church camps and church services where rededicating your life to Christ was constantly pushed. At the end of a sermon, there was always an altar call, and the 3 main decisions that one could make at that point were to receive salvation by placing faith in Christ, rededicate your life to Christ, or join the church.
My friends and I rededicated our lives to Jesus a lot. There were always sins that we had committed which showed we were not dedicated enough to Jesus.
So, we would go forward and tell the pastor that we wanted to rededicate our lives to Christ. This time we were going to be really committed to Him. We were going to show our dedication by living our lives in a way that honored Him and made Him look good.
The only problem was that the following week we would sin again. I guess we hadn’t learned how to be truly dedicated yet, so we’d have to recommit to Him again.
This is not just my experience, but it is popular in a lot of Christian circles today. A quick Google search on rededication to Christ and a click on the top results will tell you that rededicating is an important aspect of being a Christian. If you have fallen away from the practices of Christianity, you need to strive to follow Jesus more completely.
But this is exactly the opposite of what we need to do!
CHRISTIANITY IS NOT ABOUT YOUR DEDICATION TO CHRIST, IT’S ABOUT HIS DEDICATION TO YOU
If Christianity was about your dedication to Jesus, then what was the point of Jesus coming to die? If you could become acceptable to God and live in a relationship with Him through your commitment and dedication to follow Him better, then there was no reason for Jesus to die on the cross.
But there was a reason for Jesus to die on the cross and that was because of our lack of dedication and ability to follow God. As a matter of fact, that is what the entire Old Testament shows us.
Over and over again, you see the Israelite nation fail in their ability to follow God’s laws. You constantly see their lack of dedication to God. They turn away and follow other idols and gods.
But God was dedicated to them despite their lack of dedication to Him, and He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for their sin and lack of commitment to Him.
Paul captures this in Romans 5:6-8.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That is dedication. For God to send Jesus on a rescue plan for us after we had turned our backs on Him shows His commitment to us.
The story of God is His dedication to His creation. Our story is a lack of dedication to Him and a relentless commitment on His part to redeem us from our sin.
And even after salvation, it continues to be the story of His dedication to us as His children.
CHRISTIANITY IS NOT ABOUT STRIVING, IT’S ABOUT RECEIVING
The reason so many people are pushed to rededicate their lives after salvation is that they are told that Christianity is about striving to follow Christ completely, and we will fail at that every time. Why? Because Christianity is not striving to follow Christ, it is constantly receiving what is Jesus’ by merit and ours by His grace.
Christianity is not striving, it’s receiving. Look at what Paul writes in Colossians 2:6-7.
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Paul says to continue living your Christian life in the same way you started your Christian life, by receiving!
You received Christ through grace by faith, therefore, you continue to live the Christian life by receiving through faith.
You continue to live rooted in Christ and built up in Him (v.7). Those are written in the passive voice. That means that you don’t have to strive to be rooted in Christ or built up in Him. He is the One doing the rooting and the building up, and you are the recipient of His work in you and through you.
Another way to look at this is through John 15, where Jesus said that He is the Vine and you are the branches.
No matter how hard a branch dedicates itself to producing fruit, it’s not going to happen.
A branch doesn’t strive to produce fruit. A branch receives the production from the Vine and bears the fruit.
Why are we rededicating our lives to Jesus in order to strive to follow Him more when the Christian life is about His dedication to us and receiving His Life through us as vessels?
DEDICATE YOURSELF TO KNOWING WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST
Most Christians don’t know who they really are in Christ.
When you received Christ into your life at salvation by faith, you received a new life!
You are not who you once were! You are a new creation.
You are holy. You are righteous. You are loved. You are accepted. You have a new heart and new motives and desires.
Now, Satan can still deceive us into thinking that this is not true about us, and one of the best ways he does this is when we make a mistake and sin.
“See, you aren’t holy. You aren’t righteous. You don’t really love God,” Satan says.
But behavior and feelings don’t determine your identity. Birth determines identity. And you were rebirthed into God’s family and made His holy and righteous child.
But Satan knows this too, and he often convinces us that there is something wrong with us.
He is also the one who puts the idea in our minds that we need to be more dedicated to Christ.
Now, that may sound crazy, but think about it. Satan knows that Life comes from Jesus. He knows that we were meant to be receivers of Jesus’ Life in us and through us.
If he can convince us that what we need to do is become more dedicated to Jesus and strive to follow Him, who is that about? It’s not about Jesus, it’s about us. It’s about OUR dedication to Him, OUR striving for Him. It’s a man-centered Christianity.
From the outside, it looks like we are dedicated to Jesus and great followers of His, but it’s more about what we are doing for Jesus (religion) than about experiencing His Life in us and through us. One way produces self-righteousness and nothing of eternal value (John 15:5), and the other way produces eternal fruit.
But if we know who we are in Christ, then we can renew our minds to the truth when Satan tries to deceive us and rob us of the Life we have in Him and that He is expressing through us.
So, stop rededicating your life to Christ and start dedicating yourself to learning who you are in Christ.
Stop striving to follow Jesus and continue receiving from Jesus.
Rest in His dedication to you, what He has done to you, and what He is doing through you.
“As He (God) increasingly wins you over to His way of thinking about you, you’ll increasingly live as you really are because you’ll know who you really are. When your opinion of yourself matches up with God’s opinion of you, and when who you are lines up with how you live, the glory of God will be stunningly evident! And you’ll be living by faith.”
Ralph Harris, God’s Astounding Opinion of You (p. 10)
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