Hopelessly & Totally Devoted

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Acts 2:42

The Lord has been stretching me and is expanding my calling step by step. That expansion is scary sometimes. You see I have always seen my calling as a behind the scenes sort of thing – caring for the business of church so that lead pastor can concentrate on studying and prayer. But the Lord is putting me on the platform, to speak what He speaks to me through His Word. It is a task I feel the weight of. If I weren’t hopelessly and totally devoted to serving the Lord in whatever way He leads, I can say with some certainty the I would be fighting the transforming work that is going on in me personally.

Recently, I was called upon to take the platform, fill the pulpit whatever you want call it. This week’s passage is a portion of the Scripture I was given to speak about. The first thing that came to mind once I knew the passage was Olivia Newton-John’s song from Grease Hopelessly Devoted To You. If you have been reading Something Special for a while you know strange things inspire me. That song was the jumping off point for the message. As the words of the song and the message wandered around in my head together the idea of devotion bring about transformation came to the for front. Then another song, this one Love Broke Thru by Toby Mac entered the picture and it also has a line about be hopelessly devoted. Both the movie Grease and the music video for Toby Mac’s song end with transformation.

I’ll ask you the same things I asked our congregation – What are you hopelessly & totally devoted to? What is it transforming you into? See the things the believers in this week’s passage are devoted to are transforming them daily into the image of Jesus and that transformation is getting the attention of those on the outside and drawing them in so that they might be connected to Jesus and transformed as well. That kind of devotion, if we let it will transform us from sinners to servants, from outsiders to insiders, from being last to being first and it will make us attractive to the people around us who need Jesus.

From the beginning of time God has been hopelessly & totally devoted to you, me and all of mankind that His love broke through time and space to reach us. The question is… will we be so hopelessly & totally devoted to Him that we be transformed daily into the likeness of Jesus? So devoted that we will lay aside our selfishness, out personal preferences, out comfort, our bias’s and anything else that stands in in the way of our being Jesus to one another and to those around us who need to meet and make a connection with Jesus.

I challenge you to take some time to look at the things you are devoted to and how those things are transforming you. Me I am going to be hopelessly & totally devoted to Jesus.

A Prayer
Father – Thank you for being hopelessly & totally devoted to us and for wanting to transform us daily into the image of your Son. Help us to be hopelessly & devoted to you so that we can indeed be transformed into the image of Jesus. We pray that the transformation will be so striking that it will attract others to us so they can find and make a connection with Him. In the name of Jesus, who shows what hopelessly & totally devoted looks like – Amen.