Take it and give it

Dear friends in Christ,

I am blessed in so many ways and being given the opportunity to write another article today, is yet another blessing, for which I thank and praise my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Do you realise that we have crossed the half way line for 2013? Time is flying past faster and faster and it makes one realise how quickly life passes and how little time there actually is for us to do our work for the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t know about you, but I want to do as much as I can for God in the time I have on earth and I often think about the areas in my life where I still need to grow and learn, because I am definitely not where I want to be yet, spiritually. I want so much more of God and I want to draw much, much nearer to Him.

Today I want to write about one of the many things that I, myself still need to work on. How many times do we say to each other or to ourselves “just give it to God ”or “I have just given this problem to God” or “I have decided to give my life to God” or “I give my all to God.”  Dear friends, do we truly realise what it means to give something to God? If you give your friend or your child something, say a gift or a present for whatever reason, it becomes there property. Do you then go back later, decide you want it again and just take it back? NEVER! You can’t because it no longer belongs to you; you have no right to take it back.

Look at everything God gives us. He gave His Son for us. Jesus gave up His own life for us, and in doing so, He gave us a whole new life that will last forever! He gives us His love, rest, peace, the desires of our hearts, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance and The Holy Spirit to be our companion. Does God ever come and just decide that He wants to take it all back again? NEVER! Everything He gives us, is a free gift and it becomes ours to keep forever. (John 3:16, Matt 11:28, Psalm 37:4, John 14:27,  Acts 10:43). The whole bible is filled with the things that God gives us and if we accept them, they become ours forever.

Then God comes and offers us even more! He gives us an invitation to give back to Him. What does he want us to give to Him? Many things! He wants our WORRIES and CARES- 1Pet 5:7, our TRUST- Prov 3:5-6, our SINS- 1John 1:9, our SHAME- Isaiah 61:7, our FEAR-Isaiah 41:10,

Isaiah 35:4, our BODIES- Rom 12:1-2, and the list goes on. God actually gives us an open invitation to give Him everything, all of us, our lives, including all the positives and negatives.

We on the other hand, are very eager to take anything God gives us. We accept His love, forgiveness, peace, mercy and all the rest. Taking is easy, especially if it is blessings that come our way. We also like to give all the bad, sad, hurting and depressing stuff in our lives to God, which is exactly what He wants us to do. We give our lives and hearts and love and trust to God too.

Unfortunately, dear friends, that is not where it stops! That is where it is supposed to stop, but for some reason we tend to forget the principal of accepting a gift and also of giving something away, the moment God is in the picture. We take all He has to offer and give Him everything we want to, but then we turn around and throw His gifts back at Him and take back the things we have given to Him, whenever the going gets tough! All of us do it. We sit in church, give our hearts and our lives to God, we go down on our knees and give Him our shame and pain and our past sins. We declare that we accept His forgiveness and mercy and love.

We thank Him for His peace and the new life He gives us, and we ask Him, beg Him to take whatever we can’t handle on our own anymore. After the service we feel all empowered, strengthened and ready to face anything. Two days later, when we are facing the very next challenge, we give back all the same stuff that we accepted from God and we just take back everything we have given to Him. We give Him back His peace and forgiveness and mercy and we take back our feelings of guilt and shame and worthlessness and worry. Or we decide to give our lives to God, and truly live for Him and a week later, at the next party, we take our lives back and say, “for tonight I want to drink and swear and have fun with the boys, I’ll try again to live better tomorrow.”

Dear friends, I throw so many things back at God and I take back so many things that I have given to Him and I realise more and more how unfair it is to do that. My God died for me, giving me life and peace and freedom from shame and pain and guilt of the past. My God died SO THAT I can give Him my sins and my shame, my tears, my broken heart and so much more. HE DIED so that you and I can receive His gift and so that we can have the confidence to give Him the things He wants us to be free of and the confidence to give Him our lives, knowing that we are eternally blessed in doing so. How can we then turn around and throw it all back at Him and take up our burdens again, as if we don’t trust our Saviour to handle things better than we could ever imagine.

Friends, I just want to remind myself and you today that when our God says He is able to handle the things we give to Him and that the things He gives to us, are gifts for our keeping, HE MEANS IT. HE IS ABLE TO handle whatever we give to Him, (Eph 3:20). So let’s stop taking it back and trying to sort it out on our own. Let us remember that when He died for us, He gave us all we could ever need or ask for, He gave us life and wants us to be blessed in every way. (Phil 4:19),

(John 10:10). Let us stop throwing His blessings back at Him. Let us try to remind ourselves of the cross and what God did FOR US, so that we can have life in abundance and so that we can give Him all our cares and worries and our lives in full. Let us remind ourselves of this, whenever we want to take back from God or give back to Him those things.

Dear Lord, how amazing You are. Father, we thank You for what you did on the Cross for us and we ask that You will help us to accept that the gifts You give to us are eternal. Help us to leave the things we give to You at Your feet and never return to take them back. Thank You that we can receive the fullness of You in our lives right now, and that we can give anything and everything we are to You now. Dear Lord, You are everything and You are all I need.

Amen.

Be fearless in Christ.

Lizz

(Scriptures are taken from the NKJV, unless stated differently.)