How do we serve God?
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Faith Fitness
Bro. Sam Kaufman
How do we serve God? With our very best! With everything within us!
Considering all that Jesus Christ has done for us – including forgiving our sins, bringing us into a relationship with God and making us right for heaven – could we offer anything less than our very best?
In other words, we place ourselves on the altar and say, “Here am I, Lord.”
When we come to Jesus, we give Him our heart – everything we are. Our ambition is to please God in everything!
After the blood has been applied to our hearts (glory to His name), we’re not our own – we’re bought with a price.
The old song goes something like. “Here, Lord, I give myself away. ‘Tis all that I can do.”
Are we sold out to the Lord? Or do we hold onto things for ourselves that the Lord is not pleased with?
We could potentially become like the Bible couple Ananias and Sapphira, who said they gave all – yet they were holding back part of the price.
At that time in the Book of Acts, many were selling land and giving all to the Lord for His purposes. The intent of that type of giving was not meant to be showy, or attract attention to themselves.
Rather, it sprung from a pure heart that wanted to freely give to God out of love and appreciation for Him. Truly, God loves a cheerful giver.
That could be from a financial – or monetary – standpoint as the Bible points out. It could also pertain to giving ourselves to the Lord. Jesus laid down His life for His friends. We are to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Ananias and Sapphira sold land and said they gave the whole price they received to God. But in reality, they held back part of what they were given.
The land was their land – it was their possession. They didn’t have to sell it. They could have kept it.
When Ananias presented the money to Peter, it wasn’t the full amount he and his wife received for it. But Ananias told Peter it was the whole amount.
God knew it wasn’t true.
Peter told Ananias that Ananias didn’t lie just to man, but he had lied to the Holy Ghost – the third Person of the Godhead.
Do we say that we are wholeheartedly giving ourselves to the Lord, while holding part of the price back for ourselves?
If so, we need to be honest with ourselves – sometimes we like to justify ourselves any way possible – and give God every compartment of our heart.
There are times when we perhaps give a lot of ourselves, but there is that one place in our hearts we don’t want to turn over to the Lord.
We can continue to hold on – our freewill allows us – but we won’t advance in the Lord. With Ananias and Sapphira, the lie turned into their demise. How did they not know that God knew everything about them – including the amount they were giving and the amount they held back?
God is a sovereign God who knows all. We can’t pull the wool over His eyes, so to speak.
Holding back for ourselves is not ideal – and won’t work – in our service to the Lord.
Cain, from way back when, is a prime example. His offering to God was second rate – perhaps his leftovers. God is not deserving of our second best.
Israel later tried the same.
Malachi 1:7-8 states, “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar, and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? Saith the Lord of hosts.”
Verses 13 and 14 state, “Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of host, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.”
David had a different heart. In one case, David needed land from which he would provide a sacrifice to God. The man who owned the land told David he would give David the land. David told him no, answering: “And the king said unto Aranuah, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor, and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”
