“1 Moses told the leaders of the Israelite tribes, This is what the Lord has commanded: 2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to put himself under an obligation, he must not break his word; he must do whatever he has promised.”
Numbers 30:1-2
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Words are cheap today according to some. Words can be dismissed, ‘forgotten’ due to lack of passion, ‘forgotten’ due to actually lying when we said them in the first place, ‘forgotten’ due to a perceived inconvenience, or pushed aside for any number of different reasons. “I didn’t say that,” or “That’s not what I meant, you’re taking me out of context,” has become the general excuse card in our government in America. Even when text and/or video evidence shows differently, people think any thinly veiled excuse will take care of covering the tracks of their commitment.

When it comes to our commitments to God, we must understand that they are serious, binding and eternal. We don’t get to just switch it up because things get hard. We don’t get to change the terms and conditions because we changed our minds. What we said, what we committed to matters, and nothing our sinful inclinations can come up with will absolve us of our commitment to God.

The biggest one that we ‘forget’ or push aside is our basic commitment to Christ. When we say we believe that Jesus Christ is who He said He is, and we are baptized into Him, then we are committing to every part of the commissioning that He has given us.
We cannot forget to ‘go’ or push it aside as unimportant.
We cannot neglect to make disciples, but hope to just get people in the doors, get them wet in the baptistery and then presume that our job is done.
We cannot ‘forget’ to teach people what Christ has commanded us, and that doesn’t mean that we just hand the responsibility off completely to someone else. Sure, we can have support and back-up, but if we are going to make a disciple, then we must be the ones making the effort.
We cannot pretend that baptism isn’t essential, when Jesus Himself told us to do it. We must allow God to be the one to determine the bounds of His grace, it is not up to us to presume to make the call.
We cannot forget that He told us that He would be with us, He promised us companionship throughout all of these efforts, as if we had to do these things under our own power or with our own intellect. The enemy loves to distract us from this beautiful truth when we are considering sharing the Gospel with someone, when we are taking the call to GoLove seriously, because if he can distract us from the -FACT- that Jesus is with us, then he can scare us off the effort so much easier.

And there are so many other areas that we can think of when it comes to our commitments to God. What matters most is that we fulfill them, that we care open and honest with God, and that we do not make ourselves into liars. Commitments matter. All of them. And our character shines through in how we deal with them. If we are always ducking out, seeking excuses, and trying to evade our promises then we can be sure that our faith is not strong, and that we are not living a life that honors God. But if we give ourselves over to Him, do what we say we will do, then the witness of our lives will shine through instead, and God will be glorified in the effort, whether hard or strong.