What’s the most valuable item you own? An RV? Boat? Truck? My computer crashed last month and I bought a 2021 Macbook Air – $2,000 of brand-spanking-new (over-priced?) Apple goodness. But what’s the real value of any of these items? What’s the most valuable item you own? And would you trust it to someone? Who?
David cried out to the Lord, “Into your hand, I commit my spirit (or soul). My times are in your hand.” The most valuable thing he owned was his spirit, his soul, his very life and death, and he trusted it to God. This is an attitude of trust, in times of trouble and stress. When you don’t know how the crisis will end or what’s coming around the bend, can you commit your spirit to the Lord?
56 men signed our country’s Declaration of Independence at the risk of treason to the crown BUT they were committed to independence and a new country, to the point of sacrifice. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships of the war. At the battle of Yorktown, the British General Cornwallis occupied Thomas Nelson’s home for his headquarters, and Nelson quietly told General George Washington to open fire on his own home. The home was destroyed and Nelson died homeless and bankrupt. That’s commitment and trust.
“But I have rights! It’s my life, I’ll do what I want.” We love our rights, but what rights do you have in the light of God? If Christ is your Lord and God, you’ve been bought with a price and you are not your own. He will do what He will with you, you are His stuff. Can you surrender your rights and commit your soul and times to God? Can you say, “Come what may, in times of trouble, I trust in you?”
Jesus had rights, but, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And on the cross, these were the last words He uttered, the same as David said: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”
What is the most valuable item you own? How valuable is your soul to you? What are you doing with it? Who would you trust it to? Commit your spirit and times to the Lord when life is hard and death is near. Commit your spirit to the Lord and not the fleeting riches of today. How committed to Christ are you? What will you do with the most valuable thing (your soul) you own?