He Asks for Everything

I think we've been comfortable for far too long.

We’ve been comfortable with our mediocre, have-God-on-my-terms Christianity for far too long. This lukewarm, one-foot-in-the-world version of Christianity that we’ve concocted is not the version of the Bible.

You see, Jesus asks for everything.

“If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosever will save his life shall lose it: but whosever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.” Luke 9: 23-24

I grew up thinking that since I said the sinner’s prayer when I was 10 years old, I was fine. I was going to heaven in the end, and God was happy with me. I mean, I had accepted Him and everything, right? So, what more did He want with my life? Sure, I knew that I needed to tack on a few more morals to look “better,” but I could still look like the rest of the world for the most part.

I could listen to the same music. I could wear the same clothes. I could participate in the same entertainment. I could make the same choices in regards to relationships and follow the world’s pattern for dating. Right?

No.

He asks for it all. Absolutely everything must be laid upon the altar. Nothing held back.

“And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on His head.” Mark 14: 3

She broke it all out upon Jesus. A word in “spikenard” isn’t translated but is included in the Greek. It’s pistikos and means object of faith or trust. All that she had worked for and had confidence in was laid at the feet of Jesus.

"If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

Amy Carmichael

“She stood, as it were, with her face to God and her back to the people, waiting to receive His Word for the ‘chosen people.’ She had a vision of the holy living. She would not deviate from that no matter how well established, rational, and practical the ways of older missions seemed to be.”

Elisabeth Elliot, in speaking of Amy Carmichael, who left her comfortable existence in England to rescue little girls from temple prostitution in India

So, the question we must ask ourselves is: Does Jesus have everything? Does He have all my hopes, my dreams, my future, my decisions…my life?

Because true life and fulfillment cannot come until He does. It’s just the Gospel.