You can learn a lot about the sincerity of your faith by how you live the next day following a significant spiritual event. When the emotions drain and the crowds drift away, does your commitment remain? We must never mistake emotion for depth or groupthink for personal determination. What we are desperate for is a lasting change of heart, a transformation that only occurs through the work of the Holy Spirit. (Ezekiel 36:26–27; 2 Corinthians 3:18)
We need more than a one-time event, or even a particular season of life, to sustain us in living our lives for Christ. (Luke 9:23) We need something that lasts beyond today, into tomorrow, and for every day to come. Emotions come and go, but the truth found in the Gospel of Jesus never changes and never fails. (Isaiah 40:8; Hebrews 13:8)
The weeks leading up to Christian holidays are filled with activities meant to direct our focus to why we celebrate what we do. For Easter, it’s Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and Good Friday before we get to the main event of celebrating Jesus’s resurrection from the grave. It’s my favorite week of the year and an intense time of Bible reading and prayer for many of us. But what happens the next day? When Easter passes, how will you be different? If all the focus and ceremony do not change your relationship to your Lord, what’s the point? (James 1:22)
It’s the same for Christmas, except the preceding celebrations go on even longer. We celebrate Advent all month long, looking forward to commemorating the birth of Jesus with great joy and wonder. It’s a time when many can set aside what’s been keeping them from Christ and turn to Him in awe. But we’re left with the same question. When you open your last present and eat the last bite of your feast, what about you will be different the next day? Will you carry any of the awe and wonder into the next year, month, week, or even day? (Luke 2:19)
Such questions don’t only apply to holidays. How many times have you gotten fired up listening to a sermon, attending a concert, or doing some sort of missions work and known for certain that it was going to change everything? Did it? What happened the next day? For most of us, we went right back to doing what we’d always done in the way we have always done it. The only thing that changed was the calendar, not our hearts. (Isaiah 29:13) There’s nothing real in any of that. It’s just hype and emotion, not commitment.
Today, we can change what the next day looks like. We can stop focusing on occasional celebrations and undergo true transformation. (Romans 12:2) What we need is change that lasts not just for today, but for tomorrow and the rest of our lives. That is the exact transformation that Jesus offers to us. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I’m certain that Jesus has as many temporary rededications as He will ever need. What He’s seeking are those followers who will abandon every pleasure, delight, comfort, and security for the sake of Him. (Luke 14:26–27) He wants warriors who will not wither in the storm or shy away from a fight. (Ephesians 6:13) He needs true believers and lovers of His Word. (John 14:23; Psalm 119:97) Is that you, or are you content with insincere commitments and living life on your own terms? That’s the wide path that leads to Hell. (Matthew 7:13) Don’t go that way. Seek the narrow road instead. Drag your cross along, and make this day—and every day to come—a day you surrender everything to the magnificent risen King of all creation. (Luke 9:23; Romans 12:1)