What is the most precious thing in your life?
This question is one that is vitally important to answer! When I ask myself that question, I think about relationships: my relationship with God, my relationship with my family, and my relationship with my friends and coworkers. God made us to be relational people!
What is the most precious thing to me, though?
One day a man asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus said to him, "You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not witness falsely, honor your father and your mother. And he replied, All these I have kept from my youth."
It was true that he had kept all of these things from his youth, but Jesus knew exactly what it was that was the most important thing to this man. It wasn't Jesus. It was money. This man was rich, and he was willing to put everything after God except this one thing: money.
In my life, money isn't something that I withhold from God. I understand that money helps in life and is somewhat necessary, but God always finds a way to provide. I can say with the man above that I don't commit adultery, I don't kill people, I don't steal, I don't witness falsely, and I do my best to honor my father and my mother.
There is something else that I hold back from God at times, though.
What I hold back from God at times is the reins to my life.
Sometimes I pray for God's will to be done, but often times I really just want His will to line up with mine instead of having my will line up with His. I think about the relationships I have, and I truly cannot imagine leaving my family or my friends behind. But God has to be so important to us that we are willing to let go of everything we hold dear in order to follow Him.
Has He asked me to leave these people? Absolutely not! But my love for God must far exceed my love for anything or anyone else!
As I think back to the man whom Jesus told to go sell all that he had and divide the money among the poor, I think about how much that man missed out on all because he was wrapped up in worldly things instead of being wrapped up in God.
What we need to realize is that God doesn't ask us to leave things behind in order to make our lives miserable. Later in Luke chapter 18, Jesus said, "...I say to you truly, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive in return many times more in this world and, in the coming age, eternal life." (verse 29-30).
What are you holding back from God? I encourage you today to surrender everything and just watch how much better your life becomes. Hold nothing back from God, and you will see your life become full of purpose and meaning which is really what we are longing for!
Dear Heavenly Father,
Right now I surrender all that I am, all that I have, and all that I desire to You! Lord, sometimes I get too wrapped up in the here and now, and I forget that this life is but a blink of an eye. With You, life is meaningful, but without You, my life has no purpose. Take all of me, Lord, and have Your will be done in and through my life. I am Yours, God! Use me for Your glory.
In Jesus' Name.
Amen.
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