Can I Give God All?
I am going to start by answering this question. Yes! If the Lord said that we can, or if He gives us a commandment to do so, then He knows that it is possible. It is our thinking and obedience that needs to change. It simply comes down to what we choose to focus our attention, time, and energy on. And all our choices are made on what we value the most.
Psalm 84: 10-12
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
From this verse David knew where his biscuit was buttered, where his happy place was, and his greatest desire was to be close to the spout where the glory came out. It is no wonder why the LORD called him a man after His own heart. I am not being irreverent in my use of cliché’s. I understand that God is my Providence (Matt. 6:11), my Joy (1 Peter 1:8), and His presence is worthy of unequaled love, praise, and honor (Psalm 26:8). If a simple guy like me can have a small but growing understanding of this, then the most pious should be already at the door.
Matthew 22:37 NLT
Jesus replied, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
The Lord in this verse is replying to a disingenuous question posed by an expert in religious law. His question was one of the several traps that the Pharisees hoped to entangle Him in. The outcome was the same as it always has been when religion questions the Truth of Christ. Mark in his gospel records this oral beatdown as well. (Mark 12:30) Have you ever thought about what that would look like if we loved God with everything that is in us? With heart, soul, strength, and mind we gave God our all. All our time, energy, emotions, and desires. All of it! Twenty- four/Seven Three hundred and sixty-five days we loved, served, and walked and talked with Him.
That is impossible!
Then dove tailing that commandment with Luke 14:26 when the Lord told the crowds that were following Him this, will only further expose our commitment to God.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”
Nobody can do that!
It is impossible, and no one could if you get tripped up on the word “hate” and read this verse out of context and with the wrong interpretation. Be careful deciding something God said is possible, as impossible when others have and are doing it. The 11 th chapter of Hebrews gives us example after example from the Old Testament of men and women that did.
One of my favorite examples is Enoch. At the age of sixty-five, and after fathering Methuselah, he walked faithfully with God for three hundred years. In other words, Enoch lived his life in the continuous presence of the LORD. He walked so close with God that one day he just slipped from earth into heaven. That’s with all, all his heart, soul, and mind and it does not need a theologian to explain. But Enoch was not the only one to show this single-hearted and single-minded commitment to God. Elijah could stand and testify that he did. Of all the miracles that God worked through this prophet, the greatest miracle was Elijah’s personal relationship with God.
Then in the New Testament we can see the early Church giving God their all. And we cannot say, “That was back then, today things are different.” Really? What has changed? God hasn’t, He never changes. We should never use “back then” in referring to things of God. “Back then” is a relative term. Last week and last year could be considered as “back then.” Chapter 28 closes the Book of Acts, but it does not close the Acts of the Holy Spirit. He has been speaking through the “so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us” (Hebrews 12:1), which only grew in number as the generations passed. Peter, Paul and James along with Charles Spurgeon, Smith Wigglesworth, and Billy Graham are also witnesses to God’s power and faithfulness, and examples of giving God their all.
But there is no greater example of giving God His all than Jesus. Jesus lived a life submitted to the Father’s will, inspired, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, and devoted to carrying out the Father’s purpose. And although He was God, He did it as a man with no unfair advantage. There are many ways that He pleased the Father, but the one that always stands out to me is, Jesus surrendered His life to the Father. We cannot offer God a partial or limited part of ourselves. It is an all or nothing deal. We cannot be lukewarm. It is a total unconditional self-surrender that is voluntary.
When a person enters the family of God through salvation by Christ, they become partakers of His nature and blessings as joint heirs with the Lord Jesus. How these are received to the fullest is when we give God our all. Many people accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, but do not submit to Him as Lord. Imagine living in a spacious two-story house. God is upstairs and He has given us an open invitation to come up anytime. (Psalm 100:4, Hebrews 4:16) But we stay downstairs living our lives everyday focusing on our wants and desires. With all our time and effort, we try to fill the ground floor with the temporal when upstairs is the eternal. We are in the building, in Christ but never looking up.
When we love God with our all, our affection is on the One who loves us, wants to be with us every minute of our day, wants to bless us with an abundant life. How great is that? We can wake up every day and live out every day in the relationship that Jesus provided for us in His death, burial, and resurrection!