National Signing Day

Today was national signing day.  It is the day that the best football players across the country are allowed to sign official, binding letters of intent to play at a particular school.  Over the past year, many of them have made public announcements giving verbal commitments as to where they intend to play, but there is nothing binding about those verbal commitments.  The can and do change them often.  But when the letter of intent (LOI) is signed, then they are locked in to their commitment.

I wonder, if there was a spiritual national signing day, what kind of commitments would we make?   For many people, their commitment to Christ is not much stronger than a high schooler’s verbal commitment.  They have stated their intentions, but they might switch to the other team at any time. 

God is looking for commitment on our part.  Psalm 37:5 says “Commit your way to the Lord”.  Proverbs 16:3 urges, “Commit your works to the Lord”.  He doesn’t just want partial commitment, however.  He is looking for us to be totally committed.  Consider what Jesus says in Mark 12:30 (NKJV), “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment.”  That certainly sounds like He wants us to be all-in.

Sometimes football recruits exhibit loyalty to the schools that began recruiting them first.  Those schools made them feel wanted and valuable before anyone else took notice.  In our spiritual recruitment, God was the first to consider us valuable and make us a metaphorical scholarship offer to be on His team.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Jesus was committed to us when were at our most unlovable, covered up in sin.  We weren’t blue-chip recruits; we were diamonds in the rough.  We needed to be cleaned and shaped up to be worth anything.  But he was willing to recruit (redeem) us and make more of us than we ever could of ourselves.

We have offers from two teams.  Satan offers to let us play right away (no need for self-improvement); God offers to make us better (we’ll have to work hard and be disciplined).  Satan’s team stays thirsty (Luke 16:24); God’s team drinks the Living Water (John 4:10).  Satan offers to make us stars (we can live life focused on ourselves); God offers to make us champions (we can be part of the team that overcomes death and wins the final victory). 

The words of Joshua challenging the Israelites naturally come to mind: "“…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15).  So if this were spiritual signing day, which team would you sign with?