There is a difference between a commitment and commitment, and it can be important to be able to tell the two apart. A commitment (with a countable noun) is an obligation, often involving a promise. These commitments could be made in virtually any context, but the for purpose of this blog post, we'll focus on moral commitments. These are the commitments or obligations we take upon ourselves when we make covenants. Basically, they are promises to do something; in this case, to keep the commandments.
Commitment (with a non-countable noun) is more internal. It is a trait, not an obligation. It is personal, so we will call it "personal commitment." A person can feel varying levels of personal commitment toward each course of action. For example, I could feel strongly committed to keep one commandment and less strongly committed to keep another. However, this can get tricky because, having covenanted to keep all of God's commandments, I have an equally-strong moral commitment to both of them.
It is possible to have a moral commitment to do something that you don't feel much personal commitment to do. This is what happens whenever someone makes a promise, but then decides not to keep it. The person made a commitment, but they did not have commitment.
Since we are a people who make moral commitments, we should ensure that we are a people who have personal commitment as well. Making promises is good, but not if we don't intend to keep them. Before we make moral commitments, we should test our hearts to see if we feel personally committed to keeping them. If we don't, we could find ourselves in situations where we have commitments, but we don't have commitment. And keeping our moral commitments is much harder when we don't have enough personal commitment to keep us going. It is important to make commitments, especially in this church, but if we do make commitments, having commitment is even more important.
1 comment:
Having made in general a commitment to follow and obey God's commands, but it is true, sometimes not feeling personally excited or committed about a particular one, what do we do? One thing, may be to determine whether it is one of God's commands or if it some nice add-on from man. We have to be careful there. It is easy to conveniently dismiss an inconvenient command as of man or easy to decide some favorite add-on is commanded and expect it of all faithful Saints (not our place to judge, but we slip on that now and then.) Sometimes, I have to just try to drag myself along going through the motions as best I can without committed enthusiasm - and hope the feeling of commitment grows as I struggle to obey. Some things I hope I will do better in another season. I think, also, that we have to make a conscious effort to be committed and not just hope it spontaneously happens.
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