The end goal. Is commitment all about the end goal? I found that commitment is not about end goals, I found that commitment always comes before the end goal, especially if faith is the a goal. If a person wants to have good faith in God, to establish a relationship with God that works and is faithful, then commitment to faith must occur first, else the end goal of faith cannot occur.
Commitment, in itself, does not automatically denote or become faith. Commitment is a “trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose” toward something or in something. Once the object (faith) is chosen to pursue and achieve, then commitment will be “the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action”. Once this is established, then faith, being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” is exercised. The binding of oneself, intellectually and emotionally to the act of faith causes faith to be true and does not end up as just a word or lip service.
Let’s take a life example. A boss makes promises that he will do this or that, saying that to do those things are required and needed. Those things are good to hear, even if they are things that you had hoped for at work, but the results, or fruits of his labor proves otherwise. The things promised never manifest and in fact the old status quo remains or the things done were so inadequate, they proved as useful as doing nothing. The result for you is disappointment and discouragement. The problem with all the promises and things said, even if they were great to hear, was the absence of commitment. The failure to bind oneself to the course of action, to be sincere and steadfast.
Imagine now you place yourself in the position of the boss and you say that faith is promised to God, but the fruits of your labour proves otherwise. The results seemed to bring you disappointment and a sense of something failing or failed. Let us say that your goal, with the exercise of faith, was to gain personal revelation, or a personal testimony, or the needed revelation to understand a doctrine and none of these things occurred, even after a long time. What went wrong, why are things not happening for you?
It appears to you that faith was there. You performed all the tasks in Church, did all the callings, read the scriptures, etc, yet all of that brought nothing more than a sense of fulfilling tasks. Confusion now seems to set in and you could not figure out what was wrong. For some they fall from here, into doubt, despair, loss of confidence, even questioning their membership. The question remains was “were they committed?” For yourself the question is, “Was I committed?”
When looking at the completion of all the tasks, you may say, “Yes I was committed”, but for some reason, what you had hoped or expected as to your spiritual goals, never came to be. The truth of the matter was that commitment was put into the wrong place.
In the scriptures, James said that works without faith is dead. Works alone cannot gain salvation, neither the ear of God. We cannot please God without faith, therefore faith is required. The state of commitment in your heart and mind must be there first for faith to work. It was never having works first or before faith. Commitment must be first, in order for faith to exist and faith must exist before works. Commitment to faith, then, must occur, else all the works mean nothing. What you sow you reaped.
Commitment is, as said before, a state of mind (intellectual) and the heart (emotional). To love God with all our heart, mind and soul, is part of commitment. This means that if something comes in to take the place of your love of God, such as something of the world, then your commitment is threatened, because commitment is the steadfast placement of your heart and mind to God and to remain there (steadfast) for commitment to have any value and effect.
A person can do all the works asked of him or her, but if their commitment to God is not in their hearts and mind, there is no commitment to faith and without commitment, faith is nonexistent. Even the commitment to faith, will bring that person to learn more of faith and increase his or her faith.
Commitment is required for faith. It is the first thing before faith can work. Once in place, faith is then first to connect to God. A person cannot connect to God, to walk by the Spirit with just commitment. The only thing that brings us in line with God is faith, but commitment is the nail that keeps us in faith. Sometimes commitment can be instantaneous, other times it requires a specific focus and choice. For example, a person has a sincere commitment to finding truth. he or she has been this way all along. They find truth, enter the Church and begin their membership. Along the way, as things go with a membership in God’s Church, their faith is tested. Now in their life, commitment becomes an issue, because now, there are slots in their life that are vacant of faith and of commitment and things begin to fail. This could be as simple as the word of wisdom, such as they love their coffee. They had the sincere commitment to truth, but as the mortal state goes, one weakness was their state of health, in this case their love for coffee. Now commitment to faith, to exercise the Word of Wisdom, lays in question and concern.
What this shows is that commitment to faith is a specific thing, separate from the commitment to spiritual health of the body. The nature of mankind is that we can be perfect in one thing, but imperfect in so many other ways and our attention to all things, even part by part, is necessary, especially when faith is tested in all areas of our life. If commitment is absent and not realized, then the over all faith can fail (James 2:10).
Since commitment is required first for faith to work, then commitment to ensure that faith is steadfast is a requirement also. It is about building ourselves, line by line and as we move along, commitment will be part of the adjustments and changes, but now, what do we see in this? Yes, commitment must first exist for these changes to occur and become permanent. A person may want things to exist, better faith, more personal revelation, etc, but if that commitment shows to be absent, then any spiritual development toward these spiritual goals cannot occur.
A wishy washy heart and mind is a person that wavers and “he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed”. Such a person is not committed. When Joseph Smith entered the grove, in accordance to James 1:5, he was committed to find the truth and nothing wavered. This was the act of faith. Commitment to find the truth came first, the act to pray in sincerity and humbleness was the act of true faith that came second and that gained him the First Vision, the achievement to his goal of getting wisdom on the matter of which church to join.
A person who claims to have faith and a relationship with God, but wavers when proper study of God’s word is needed, is a person who is not committed and without that commitment first, the so called relationship with God is nonexistent or it is sporadic and empty. A person who is normalized to this kind of relationship, will not realize, at least not right away, that their relationship is without commitment. This says that a true commitment requires personal sacrifice, the willingness to do what is needed to ensure commitment exists. It is these people who do that that will find their faith and relationship with God is assured.
Do you wish to see if your commitment is sure with God? Look at your own life, in particular the state of relationship. If there is a lack of commitment in your relationships, then there is a lack of commitment in your relationship with God and this will prove that faith is lacking. If you say that “he” or “she” is not doing their part for you to be committed, then you have just fooled yourself to think that your commitment is dependent on the other person’s actions and choices. Your commitment must exist first, without the promise or guarantee from the other person. In this way your commitment will not waver in the face of relationship problems and remain steadfast and true. In this way, you then show the other person that you are committed. They too must do the same for anything in the relationship to work.
Now lets take that life example and insert it into a relationship with God.
God is committed to you and your salvation. His commitment is steadfast and true. You can depend on his commitment to you at all times and his commitment is there, waiting for us, no matter what we do or choose. BUT, the problem is not with God but with us. If our commitment is poor or nonexistent, then we cannot gain the benefit of God’s. The relationship with God fails because of our failure to commit ourselves. Failure to first commit ruins any chance of achieving any relationship goals with God and this includes repentance. God is not saying that we must be a certain way in order for him to commit, God is saying he is already committed, he is waiting for us to commit ourselves. The relationship or marriage with God fails, not because of him, but because of us. This same thing exists in life, when two people in a marriage or serious relationship break apart and one partner was committed and was true, but the other was not committed, the relationship then fails.
Commitment is required first in order that faith can work. As it is in real life, commitment must be first in order for all else to succeed. If you do not have commitment, then it is time to change that and you will find your life, relationships and your faith become more stable as a result.
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