Devotion

This is an article written by Jeremy Neely for a magazine in Australia called "Unite!"

Devotion
by Jeremy Neely

A few months back, I was forced to look deep into my life and analyze my devotion. The questions began to arise. First, to what extent am I devoted to my wife? My answer was that I would go to the ends of the earth for her and would even die for her. Then the second question hit me, to what extent am I devoted to God?

Here I am willing to go to the ends of the earth for my wife, even going to the grave for her, yet my devotion to my Creator is wrapped up in a 15 - 30 minute devotion time from a book with some touching story tied to a single verse. It began to appear to me that we have created a double standard and devotion has come to mean one thing in our relationship with our friends, family, husbands, wives, etc, but yet it means something completely different when it comes to God.

A quick search to look up the definition of the word devotion on Dictionary.com netted me similar findings. here are the definitions from that search:
1. profound dedication; consecration
2. earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc.
3. an assignment or appropriation to any purpose, cause, etc.: the devotion of one's wealth and time to scientific advancement.
4. Often, devotions. Ecclesiastical. Religious observance of worship; a form of prayer or worship for special use.
It seems that the dictionary has a double standard of devotion as well. The first three sound like the devotion I give to my wife, yet the fourth pounds off on "religious observance".

This obviously set off more thoughts and questions in my heart and mind. God is not an idea or a philosophy, He is a real person. We are created in the image of Him, so why do we treat Him differently then we treat one another? Many of us experience or have experienced His presence in our daily lives, so we cannot cast Him off as being distant or just an idea.

Now let's look at devotion in the life of Jesus. Specifically I'm looking at stories from Matthew. Jesus many times over showed us, as well as told us, that our devotion to God (the Person, no the idea) should be so strong that we would be obedient unto death. Ouch! Not only did Jesus (God with us) demonstrate this lifestyle of devotion to the Father, but so did His Disciples and those that came to faith through them.

Needless to say, this has disrupted my pattern of setting aside 15 - 30 minutes a day to sit down to read a book titled "Daily Devotion". Those of you familiar with the music ministry my wife and I have called Wur'ship Project (http://www.wurship.com) will know that our drive is to encourage others to live a life of worship. This lifestyle of worship will only spring forth from us if we truly give God our devotion. No matter which way one tries to look at it, the end result is that we must become imitators of the life of Jesus Christ.