"Giving All"

"But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet." Acts 5:1,2

Let's look at this scripture portion in a spiritual context this morning. This husband and wife sold a possession and brought what they received from it to the apostles. They told the apostles that that was "all" of the money they received when it wasn't, they kept back a portion for themselves.

The spiritual application? We do the same thing with God. We come to Him and say that we are giving Him our "all". We even sing the song, "I Surrender All". We tell Him in prayer that we love Him with all our heart. We tell Him that we are all His. Yet, the truth is we aren't- it's evident in our words, actions, thoughts and deeds. We give Him what we want Him to have and reserve for ourselves the parts of our lives that we want to still hold on to- just like Ananias and his wife.

God, through the apostles, didn't accept their "half hearted" giving and He won't accept it from us either. Giving God part of yourself is not good enough. Giving God half is not good enough. Giving God 99.9% isn't good enough. The rich young ruler gave God 60%- he kept six out of the ten commandments- so he actually gave more than half, but it was still not good enough. When God says to love Him with "all", that's 100%. When He says not to have other gods before Him, that means you are to have no gods- which means He is the only God you have, which means He is your 100% God.

We may have been taught that we can have God "and" whatever else. But that's not what Jesus taught. He doesn't want part of you, half of you, to share you with everything else, He doesn't want to be just an attachment to your life, just a rescue package when you are in trouble, just fire insurance from hell, just your bailout plan in time of crisis, just a Sunday morning church service. He wants to be Numero Uno (Number One), First and Last and Center of your life. He wants to sit on the throne of your life. He wants ALL of you. That is not unreasonable, after all He gave ALL of Himself for us. He didn't stop short at the cross, He did not withhold anything from us, He gave His all unto the death. He gave every drop of His blood, every inch of His flesh, every ounce of His love in sacrifice for you... He gave 100%. Why shouldn't He expect 100% in return!

Have a great day. Part isn't good enough. If you are holding back anything from God you are holding back too much.