Sounds crazy, but every time I hear this song from Grease, sung by Olivia Newton-John, I think about God, and about how I feel the same way about God that she felt about John Travolta.  I am hopelessly devoted.  Even if God didn’t love me back, I’d still be totally committed, totally surrendered to Jesus, because I know that He is my only hope, my only Deliverer, my only real LIFE.  In the song, Olivia says, “My head says I should leave, but my heart says to ‘hang on till the end’.”  Sometimes I feel that way.  My head says there’s just no sense in what’s going on. Why would God do that to me or to someone I love?  But my heart keeps saying what Peter said, when Jesus asked the disciples if they were going to leave Him too.  Peter said, “Where would we go?”  ‘Course God is different from John T.  God not only wants me, but He loved me when I didn’t want Him or love Him.  He’s there every minute, in my heart, telling me He’s taking care of me.

‘Devoted’ makes me think about ‘devotional’.  When I was a kid, maybe 8-10 years old, my momma would give me a copy of the Upper Room daily devotional, those little bitty books that had a few words about God for each day.  She said I ought to read it.  She didn’t say much else about it, about why I should read it.  I remember thinking, ‘I can read the Bible if I want to think about God, and I do read the Bible; so what do I need with some old person telling me what to think about God?”  So being young and dumb, I didn’t read it.  I think if she’d explained a little more to me about why it was a good idea, if I’d just think about God for a few minutes, early in the morning each day, that it would truly change my life; that I would begin to feel the Presence of God in my life from that one small daily act.  So, and this is truly humorous (and sad at the same time), I promptly started reading a devotional every day when I was about 54 years old.  Doesn’t take me long to get it, huh?

I never knew why they even called those books, or tapes, or blogs, ‘DAILY devotionals’.  Now I know that daily contact with God makes me ‘hopelessly’ devoted to Him, just like the song says.  Now I read 3-4, sometimes 5 devotionals, in the same day.  I try to think how the ones I read relate to each other, about what it is God is trying to say to me through those particular devotionals on that particular day.  Sometimes I get a new message, a new revelation, from God, where He reveals Himself to me in a new way that I never even thought of before.  But let’s not get carried away.  If you spend 5 minutes each morning reading one devotional, God can AND WILL use that small commitment to develop a personal relationship with YOU.  And you with Him.  He will change you from being a spectator Christian to being a participating disciple of our Lord Jesus.

HAVE A MERRY ‘DEVOTED’ CHRISTMAS!