What's Your Devotion Quotient?

The other day, I was at a good friend's house and as we were rummaging through his storage shed, I noticed a nice golf bag with a nearly new set of clubs. I commented to my friend, “I didn't know you played golf.”

He looked at me rather sheepishly and mumbled, “Yeah, that was sort of a flash in the pan venture.” He paused for a moment and then chuckled more to himself than to me. “You know the golf lifestyle looks so good… beautiful fairways in gorgeous vacation like settings. A leisurely day spent with friends, ending at the clubhouse with a nice lunch or dinner. It seemed like the perfect past time to take up.”

He walked over and picked up the golf bag. “So on the advice of a golf pro I bought these clubs and started taking lessons. But I found out it wasn't everything I thought it would be. For starters, golf didn't come easy for me, and even with lessons my progress was slow. I thought I would really like it, but quite frankly most of the time I was just plain frustrated. I began to realize that if I was to ever be proficient at the game, I was going to have to give golf a lot of my time, much more time than I bargained for.”

He paused and chuckled again, dropping the bag back onto the floor. “Yeah, it was a real flash in the pan venture.”

I smiled to myself as my friend shared his story, remembering two exercise machines I had at home that now lay collecting dust. At the time I bought them, I was convinced they would give me the rock hard abs I saw on TV. But the commercials neglected to emphasize how much effort the exercises would actually involve, even with the “magic machines.”

I think if most of us are honest, we can identify one or more “flash in the pan ventures,” things which were terribly exciting at the time, but which quickly lost their allure. We thought we would be committed to them, but in actuality our “devotion quotient” was not high enough to sustain our interest. It's easy to be intrigued with something new, only to find out it is much more difficult to sustain effort in the face of difficulty or challenge.

Jesus understood this tendency in our human makeup very well. He told His disciples: “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ In the same way any of you who does not consider the cost, cannot be my disciple.” (Matthew 14:28–30; 33)

No one could ever accuse Jesus of false advertising. He repeatedly promises to give us abundant life, and He honestly tells us that similar to acquiring any skill, operating in abundant life requires our time and energy. In order to learn how to access and walk in abundant life, we must be committed to following Him, seeking His counsel and obeying His promptings.

We all want “the good life.” But what's your devotion quotient? Are you willing to count the cost of walking in the abundant life Jesus promised?

Please come join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM. Our own Pastor Karl Malouff will be discussing “Promotion through Devotion,” another message in our current series, “Promotion in the Lord.”