Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Are you giving God your ALL or your most? - ALLmost series of talks


Its so easy for us, especially in our western culture to not "give it our all" or "go all out" from time to time, wouldn't you agree? I mean sometimes it makes sense right?
There are certainly times in life when you do not need to "go all out" or "give it everything you've got", I mean sometimes that mentality can be downright ludicrous.
You know what I'm talking about... like the 38yr old guy who dresses up in his Jedi outfit for the premiere of the latest Star Wars movie (be on guard summer 2015) maybe a little overkill huh?
Or the guy in the gym who is scream/grunting (loudly) through every...single... rep.
So sure there are times when we can pull back.
There are also times when we do pull back & not give it all that is required and it hurts us.
You probably have plenty of personal examples of that.... not paying a bill on time, forgetting that its past due and hello disconnection.
Waiting til the last minute to attend the "Defensive Driving" class that will allow your ticket to be dismissed and end up paying full ticket price and insurance increase.
Not studying for a test and barely getting by with a "passable" grade instead of a good grade.
It seems that we do both. We can Over Do It and we can certainly Under Do It.
A big problem for us is when we get comfortable with "just getting by".

The big question here is.... how do you approach your relationship with Jesus Christ?
Do you give it "everything you've got" or do you have the "just getting by" attitude?
It's really a hard question to ask ourselves isn't it? It's tough to look in the mirror and ask the hard questions....

So here it is... Are you giving God your ALL or your most?
Are you giving God ALL of you, I mean everything you've got?
"There's no doubt about it my life is centered in Jesus Christ and my priorities, time, energy & resources reflect that."
Or......
Are you giving God most? And hey, most is pretty good right?
"I'm doing pretty good when you compare me to the guy next door, he never goes to church and cusses all the time. Heck I'm doing great compared to that guy. And I love the Lord, I really do. I want to read my bible more and live by God's standards but I'm not perfect you know."

ALL or most?

2,000 years ago, Jesus was asked an interesting question. A scribe said, “Which of all the commandments is most important?” It was kind of a trick question. Honestly, I don’t think he thought he was going to get an answer, but Jesus, as only Jesus can do, answered in a way that is so profound. How many of you know that we have a tendency to complicate this thing called Christianity? We complicate it, but Jesus had a way of simplifying it. He could say so much in so few words. What Jesus said was this, “The greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) That’s it. What He did was take hundreds of laws that had been accumulated and thousands of years of tradition and history and He said here it is, in one sentence, love God, heart, soul, mind and strength.
Here’s another question for you – if Jesus said that’s most important, doesn’t it naturally, logically follow that we ought to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand exactly what that means and obeying it. What does it mean to love God heart, soul, mind and strength? By the way, it is not enough to love God in just one of those ways, you’ve got to love Him in all those ways, like love to the fourth power. These are the four dimensions, this is the great commandment, Love God heart, soul, mind and strength.

I believe if we honestly pursue the Great Commandment, study it, understand it, apply it to life it will become much easier... or maybe the right phrase would be "it would become natural" to give God ALL of us.

So for the next few posts I'm going to pursue just that. An ALLmost series of talks.
I'd love to hear your feedback, your struggles, your triumphs, questions or whatever suits you through this series of talks so please join in the discussion.

Til next time, go ask the hard question...................



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Amen! Selah...this is a wonderful article and I can relate to this 110% which is what I give The Lord God Almighty! I eat sleep, and dream Jesus and my life and work reflect my love commitment and dedication to Him. It wasn't always this way but have been now for the past 4years. Oddly enough I found my calling and ministry after my husband and I lost our home, land and all our belongings to a flood in 2009. My book "How to Count it ALL Joy When Faced with Insurmountable Circumstances" was the first step in returning to Christ. Thank you for this article it is a blessing and I will "Pray it Forward" - Bernita Scott Weston