Don't Give up Everything

The prayer in often sincere ‘Lord, I give everything to you’. But I think it is a lame excuse to look pious for a moment just to start doing things again later that day. This begins a cycle of guilt, disconnects us from our mission and ultimately makes us at the centre, not Christ.

Are Christians ever commanded to ‘give up everything?’ The answer to this question would take more than I am willing to write at this moment, but the conclusion would be ‘not in the sense we often are thinking when we say that’. The disciples tell Jesus that they have left everything, the rich young ruler leaves sad because he doesn’t give up everything, and all things are to be subject to Christ in the next age. But does this mean that we are to give up EVERYTHING? I don’t think we mean ‘just sin’ when we say ‘everything’. I think we mean, literally everything.

I remember being at evening church gatherings where my worship of God was pure and honest. I left humbled, yet joyful over the power that God yields in my life. Yet before bed as I watched the eleven o’clock sports highlights I felt guilty for going back to the pagan things I repented of hours ago. I even felt guilty about going to bed, should I give that up too?

I don’t think so. If we follow the ultimate good of the idea of giving up everything for God I think we ultimately see ourselves in a perfect church, meditating, praying and drinking tea made with ingredients listed in the Old Testament. This isn’t what God wants. Please resist the desire to disagree with me here. God wants to redeem our lives. God wants to put us on a mission to proclaim the gospel. We should not think of giving up everything item by item until we are like him but rather redeeming everything so we are not empty, but full of godliness. We should keep our jobs, be connected to our culture, speak to our children, cut our lawns, make dinners, have sex with our spouse, clean our bathroom, vote in elections, and if there is time left over, watch the sports highlights.

The end result of giving everything up to God is a Christian elitism where some Christians are superior to others and these elitists form a church that is disconnected from both the world and any Christians who are not as good as they are. This is not the church. The church is both radically connected to culture and radically different than culture at the same time.

If instead of trying to give up everything (which is really impossible anyway) and started asking God what he wants us to do with everything, we’ll be in the direction to transform our lives.