Consider the following words: dedication, commitment, devotion. What do they mean to you – not to you as a member of your family, as a part of a local community or as a citizen of a nation, but rather to you as a believer, as a Christian, as a follower of Christ. Do words such as these have a deep heartfelt meaning or do you simply have a passing, surface understanding of their definition.
Dedication – self-sacrificing devotion.1
Commitment – an agreement or pledge to do something in the future, the state or an instance of being obligated or emotionally impelled (to urge or drive forward as if by exertion of strong moral pressure).1
Devotion – religious fervor.
As we continue this journey today of searching out what it means to long for relationship with God and how the status of your prayer life impacts the health of that relationship, I want you to consider for a moment that a deeper understanding of the meaning of words like dedication, commitment and devotion are vital to that quest. I fear that as Western Christians, influenced by generations by Western Culture, we have lost that understanding and that this loss is more tragic than we have realized.
Ask yourself, “What is the fastest growing religion in America today?” If we are willing to stop viewing our world from the eyes of the self-centered, egotistical Christians we have become, then we might be surprised to learn that it is not Christianity.
In 1990 86.2% of Americans identified themselves as Christians. In 2001 that number had fallen to 76.5%, a loss of 9.7% in 11 years. As of May 2007 it was estimated that this number had dipped to 71% and that it will fall below 70% before the end of 2008.
Islam, on the other hand, is on the move. It is rising in the face of the moral decay that years of non-confrontational, socially acceptable and politically correct Christianity has left us with.
As early as April 1997, CNN reported, “The second-largest religion in the world after Christianity, Islam is also the fastest-growing religion. In the United States, for example, nearly 80% of more than 1,200 mosques have been built in the past 12 years.”
Faced with such a rapidly growing giant, there must be something that we can learn from this spiritual adversary. Today, I want to suggest to you that indeed there is something that we can learn – something that the average Muslim has that the average Christian has lost. It is an understanding of those words like dedication, commitment and devotion.
Even with our surface understanding of these definitions, I dare say that most of us would agree that a person of Muslim faith is deeply devoted to their faith. Though misguided, they remain sincerely committed. This dedication is clearly reflected in one of their most recognizable acts – their daily ritual of prayers. We don’t often hear the Muslim call to prayer here in America. It seldom wakes us from our sleep in the morning or echoes in our ear as the last sound before we close our eyes in sleep – yet that call to prayer goes forth here as it does around the world and when it does the Muslim stops what he is doing and turns his attention toward a faceless god called Allah, whose supposed heavenly abode is empty because of the spiritual reality that he does not exist. There still remains such a devotion to a false faith that these empty prayers continue to go forth like clockwork and drive millions forward in pursuit of a dead faith.
You may respond to this reality with a comment such as, “what a tragedy”, however I want to suggest a different response – “what power!” If the pointless prayers of an empty religion can produce such tremendous growth and advancement, then how much more powerful are our spirit-filled petitions to the One, True, Living God.
What can a Christian learn, or should I say, what must a Christian learn, from the Muslim faith? We must learn dedication, commitment and devotion to a life of prayer.
Dedication to a lifestyle of prayer did not originate among the men and women of Islamic faith, it can, however, be traced back to those whom Muslim’s hold in high regard – men from whose life they learned the value of prayer, men like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was learned from the fathers of the faith – the Judeo-Christian faith. If we are to see a turn in the tide of the spiritual war that is raging in America, if we are to see a reversal of the moral decay that has plagued us, if we are to see the power of the Creator of the Universe once again displayed in our midst, then we must return to a devoted life of daily prayer.
Consider the New Testament admonishment that we should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). This is a powerful commandment that we have completely lost the understanding of. For far too many people, it has become easy to claim that we have fulfilled this obligation by “maintaining an attitude and mindset of prayer” and by claiming to “walk in a constant awareness of God’s presence around us”. While I will not dispute the value of this basic understanding, it would be even more valuable as something we actually walked in rather than merely saying that we believe. What if we began to live our life and make our daily decisions based upon the reality of “praying without ceasing”. How do we live a life that truly acknowledges God in every breath we take? We begin by devoting real time everyday to real conversation with the one we call Father, and thereby establishing a real –and personal – relationship with Him.
I want a real relationship. One that, like Daniel had, allows me to begin to understand the mysteries of the Kindgom, to show the leaders around me the truth and to stand in the face of all kinds of persecution and remain faithful to the absolute truth of God’s Word.
So, how did Daniel do it? Very simply – he devoted himself to stop what he was doing, fall to his knees, turn his face toward God (who he understood to be in the temple in Jerusalem) and to literally call out to Him 3 times each and every day – morning, noon and evening.
Daniel 6:10 (The Message)
10 When Daniel learned that the decree had been signed and posted, he continued to pray just as he had always done. His house had windows in the upstairs that opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he knelt there in prayer, thanking and praising his God.
It was in this way that I believe Daniel came to walk out the New Testament principle of “prayer without ceasing”. It was through this commitment to prayer, even in the face of death, that Daniel drew close enough to God for God to reveal His secrets to him.
The Psalmist faced his challenges in the same way:
Psalm 55:16-17 (The Message)
16-19 I call to God;
GOD will help me.
At dusk, dawn, and noon I sigh
deep sighs—he hears, he rescues.
My life is well and whole, secure
in the middle of danger
Even while thousands
are lined up against me.
God hears it all, and from his judge’s bench
puts them in their place.
But, set in their ways, they won’t change;
they pay him no mind.
We long to have what David had, a life that is “well and whole, secure in the middle of danger”, yet we are unwilling to commit to prayer. We long to understand the Mysteries of the Word like Daniel did, yet we cannot find time for communion with the one who could reveal them. We cry out for the power of His presence to fill our services, yet we cannot find it within ourselves to show the same devotion that is expressed by the empty prayers of counterfeit spirituality.
We must come to understand that commitment and dedication are powerful weapons in the Kingdom. The book of 2 Kings describes a battle in which the chosen people of God went forth led by a lackluster, secular king. Elijah even proclaimed that he would not help Israel in their quest, but for the presence of the Godly King of Judah (Jehoshophat). Israel’s dedication to God was questionable in that day, but the dedication of a pagan king to a false god was absolute. Look at the result:
2 Kings 3:26-27 (The Message)
26-27 When the king of Moab realized that he was fighting a losing battle, he took seven hundred swordsmen to hack a corridor past the king of Edom, but they didn’t make it. Then he took his son, his firstborn who would succeed him as king, and sacrificed him on the city wall. That set off furious anger against Israel. Israel pulled back and returned home.
If this response to absolute dedication from a pagan king to the Moabite God’s could cause the Children of Israel to withdraw, do you not think that the absolute dedication of the Islamic leaders to the false god Allah can drive back the Christian church today. Remember that this loss could only occur because Israel was not dedicated to her own True God. It is time for us to show our dedication in prayer and to prepare ourselves that we might no longer be driven backward, but that we might once again begin to Advance the Kingdom of God in all the earth.
Challenge: Stop 3 times each day for the next 3 weeks and take a moment for prayer. Find a place where you can turn your attention to God. Put yourself in a posture that allows you to focus on Him. Turn your full attention toward His face. Take the time to talk to Him and see what happens.
