Would you give it? What seems to be a pretty vague question to ask will hopefully be much more specific by the end of this post. For transparency purposes I was shaving tonight and an all too familiar video came up on my instagram feed. I remembered I had seen it before on several occasions and for some reason it has always struck a chord in me. He was talking about Mary Magdalene in John 12 when she poured an expensive oil on Jesus’ feet. Now, this was no “cheap gift”. This was an expensive gift but much more than that was the status of her heart. She was more concerned with serving Jesus than the amount of money it was worth. How do we know this? She poured it out, her actions reflected that of her belief in him. To her he was her greatest prize. In my life I find it so easy to KNOW that I should pour it all out for Jesus. It’s easy to know that I should give him my everything. That’s easy. It’s the “do you WANT to?” Knowing you should do something and wanting to do it are two very different things, and here is where you have to be honest with yourself. If God asked for something, anything, everything and you don’t give it, or you find yourself holding things back then I would ask you one question “do you think he is worthy of it?” Is Jesus worthy of the things he is asking of you? The answer is, of course yes and amen, but do you believe that? Now, if you are here. If you are reading this and are like I don’t think he is. I don’t think he is worthy of it all. Maybe some, but not everything. I want you to know that there are a few reasons he is worthy of it all.
First, He made everything so it belongs to him, already.
Everything that we see, don’t see, will see, or will never see is all from his hands.
“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” — John 1:3
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein,for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” – Psalm 24:1–2
“Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.” – 1 Chronicles 29:14
Secondly, he is worthy of it all because he gave it to you.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3
“Our God gives you everything you need, makes you everything your to be.” 2 Thessalonians 1:2
“Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.” 2 Corinthians 9:10
Lastly, Jesus is King.
If Jesus is king than anything we are unwilling to give him is an idol that we put on his throne to replace him. Anything we are unwilling to give him will always be quick to take his place on the throne of our life.
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Revelation 4:11
“I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” Psalm 7:17
We are all too quick sometimes to worship the gift and forget about the giver of that gift. When in reality if the giver of that gift was not there then the gift would cease to exist.
So, the same question worded differently is “do we love God enough to give him whatever he wanted from us?” If we truly believed that God was worthy of everything then our response would always be a resounding “TAKE IT!” The guy in the video ended by encouraging us that we were not put here on this earth to simply live and accumulate all kinds of stuff to keep for ourself but to instead offer up our entire life to God. He goes a step further from telling us to not hold our stuff back from God but to not hold our life back from him. I know there have been times in my life that I have been ready to give God any THING he wanted but when it came to my life; that was off limits. The problem with that is if I am not willing to give him everything Im not really willing to give him anything. I just tricked myself into thinking that I was this super godly person who was sold out for the Lord and his kingdom when truthfully my heart was so infatuated and in love with myself that as long as it didn’t hurt my kingdom I would be okay with giving to God but if it caused the walls of my little kingdom to endure any stress he couldn’t have it. The Christian life, the true Christian life requires us to not have a kingdom. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…” (Gal. 2:20). Believer, our life belongs to God and so does everything in it. True Christianity requires us to love God so much that nothing could prevent us from giving him whatever he wanted, even if it was moving half way across the country. Even if it was someone you loved. Even if it was everything. Why? Because God is infinitely more valuable than all the things the world could offer us. So, let me ask you the question one more time. Would you give it?
