Fully Committed
“And may your hearts be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by His decrees and obey His commands, as at this time.”1 Kings 8:61
These words are part of King Solomon’s prayer of dedication at the completion of the temple in Jerusalem. It was a moment of celebration and fulfillment, a physical reminder that God was dwelling among His people. But Solomon didn’t want a beautiful building. He wanted a faithful people.
Not halfway committed. Not when commitment is convenient. Not when you feel like committing.
Fully committed.
It’s easy to drift into partial commitment: reading your Bible when life slows down and you can find the time, praying only when things go wrong, showing up to church when your family has a free weekend. But Solomon’s prayer still calls to us today, and it's clear: be all-in with your faith.
So what could full commitment look like in your everyday life? Here are four things you and your family can do to build a life that's fully committed to the Lord:
- Read your Bible daily. Not out of guilt, but out of hunger. Let God’s Word shape your thoughts and decisions.
- Pray continually. As 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, keep an ongoing conversation with God through every moment, big and small.
- Be rooted in your church. Attend regularly. Serve consistently. Don’t just go ... belong!
- Live in obedience. When God speaks, follow. His commands aren’t burdens; they’re the path to real freedom.
Full commitment isn’t perfection, it’s direction. It means you’ve set your heart fully toward God and you’re pursuing Him with all you have.
Note after sharing the devotional: As a different sort of confessional, I did slow way down in my daily Bible readings sometime in the late-summer (I want to say last August). Similar to what I shared about stopping logging notes in my phone of the sermons preached at church, I essentially burned out. Reading my Bible and praying every day were no longer joys; they felt like burdens, like something I had to do because I knew it was right to do, but I was also no longer convinced that anything good was going to result from it. I had trucked on as long as I could, and my energy simply gave out.
So, reading this verse again:
Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.” 1 Kings 8:61, NKJV
The word that’s standing out to me is to “recommit.” Recommit to meeting daily with Him. Recommit to removing distractions. Recommit even to naming my time with God as something schedulable -- in other words, if someone asks me if I am free at a certain time and that happens to be my time with God, I say no. And if I am asked why I am unavailable, that’s when I would name the item with whatever time I call my time with God.
Unfortunately, I’ve never done anything like that in my life. Usually first thing in the mornings at work have been slow, so that has been when I’ve read my Bible, done my devotionals, and prayed, and then am ready when work actually starts to come in. (It’s not good practice, and at a different job I won’t have that opportunity.) When I’m not working, my time has been occupied with serving / taking care of my wife, and sleeping. So unless I tell my wife I have to do less for her in order to make time outside of my current time slot for God, I don’t see anything moving forward.
But, as long as I have been able, I have found that devoting large chunks of time with Him have proven to be very valuable. Really cool stuff has been revealed in that time of quiet journaling and reflection. I now have more realizations and revelations than I’ve had time to write down, but I’m hopeful and optimistic that, by God’s grace, I’ll be able to write them all down so I can release, let go, and move on. Additionally, for good Godly things that He is revealing that He wants me to actually hold on to (for example, Bible verses, and any revelations from them that have me being grateful in the present and excited for the future) I have some inspiration to try to set them to music. Time permitting, of course, which I understand is not always a given. But God is still the One Who makes a way when there appears to be no way. So, all in good time.
For now, I’ll continue to ask Him to help me set aside times to meet with Him and soak Him in. And of course, there are two layers to this: daily meeting with Him, and weekly Sabbaths. It would be a major stretch for me to actually go “radio silence” once every seven days. But, there are believers who have done that and made it work.
Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day.” 1 Kings 8:61, NKJV