Written by Liam Henderson
Luke 23:44-49
44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
The last words that Jesus said before he died on the cross were “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Jesus gave up his spirit, his soul, and his life on his own accord to God in his last breath, showing his loyalty to God, that he trusts God with his spirit, his soul, and his life. For me personally, it is not always easy to stay loyal to God with constant distractions. As a three-sport student-athlete I often get carried away with all of my sports, keeping up with my grades, and general busyness in my life that I sometimes forget the thing that matters the most, and that is being loyal to God. Now, my sports and grades do matter, but without God none of it matters.
Another way that loyalty was shown in this passage was when Jesus’s followers followed him from Galilee all the way to where he died. They continued to follow him even when nobody else believed Jesus. They followed him even when he was wrongly imprisoned and crucified. They continued to believe that he was the one sent by God to wash away our sins. It takes a lot of courage to have faith in someone and have faith when even the government is against them.
I sometimes have a hard time following God in my life because there are so many temptations that try to pull me away from staying loyal to God. One of my three sports is wrestling, and during this past season I found it very hard to keep going because of all of the training and mental toughness that it took to keep wrestling. Every night I would pray to God and ask him “why is it so hard right now?” I always felt him telling me that he was putting me where he wanted me, and that I needed to wait.
So I did.
I trusted him even when I felt like quitting, but I kept at it because I knew that God was teaching me something through the difficulty, discipline, and painful endurance. This period of time taught me humility and the ability to trust and be loyal to God more because he was the one that got me through it and helped me thrive.
I’m learning that being loyal to God isn’t always easy, but it will pay off in the long run, whether it takes days, months, or even years.
Prayer Prompts:
Ask God what it looks like to be loyal to him today in your own life.
Ask God for forgiveness for when you have strayed away from him in the past.
