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HELEN SANDERS
4-25-2022
TOTAL COMMITMENT
There is a story about a pig and a chicken. The chicken asked the pig if he would like to help make eggs and bacon for the farmer and his wife. The pig responded with, “That’s easy for you to do by laying an egg, but for me it is total commitment.”
Of course, to get the bacon the pig would have to die. He was not willing to do that. Like most of us, we like the idea of living and not dying.
Jesus spoke to his disciples and told them to “count the cost,” (Luke 14:28) when speaking of a man building a tower that started it but did not have enough money to finish it. He hadn’t counted the cost. In Luke 14:33 it says, “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
Forsake everything? Isn’t that a little extreme? Well, that is what Jesus said, not me. You see my friends, the disciplined life of a believer lays it all down at the cross, and says, “Here it is Lord, do what you will.” He does not think of himself, he only thinks of serving the Lord. This is where crucifying the flesh comes in.
When Elijah called Elisha, he was plowing with a field with a yoke of twelve oxen. Elijah cast his mantle upon him and walked away. Elisha knew what this meant. Elijah was calling Elisha to follow him. Elisha asked to go kiss his father and mother and he would follow him. Elisha’s response was, “Go ahead, what do I have to do with you”? This was indicative of saying, “forget the call.” I will look elsewhere.
Elisha took the twelve oxen and slew them and put them on an altar as a sacrifice. He did not hesitate to answer the call anymore. He then went after Elijah and ministered to him. He became his servant. He did not show up and say, “here I am, anoint me for the ministry.” He had left all to be his minister, or servant.
This is what Jesus is talking about. Everything we have we give to him. Our job, our money, our home, family, and our very beings are laid on God’s altar. That is total commitment. Nothing is ours anymore. We have “slain our oxen.” There is nothing to go back to. Jesus becomes everything. This is why the believers in the Book of Acts could do what they did. They forsook all to follow the Lord, and that is our example to follow. When everything we have now belongs to Jesus then “things” no longer control us. We are spirit-controlled instead.
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