HE WILL ALSO GIVE US EVERYTHING ELSE”
“Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32, NLT).
ACCORDING TO the Gospel of Luke, the day in which Peter, James, and John had their best catch of fish, “they forsook all and followed Him” (Luke 5:11). Later on, Jesus saw Matthew diligently working as a tax collector, and «He said to him: ’Follow Me.’ So he [Matthew] left all, rose up, and followed Him» (Luke 5:27, 28). And speaking to us, the Master points out that “in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:33, NIV).
“To give up everything.»Why does the Lord ask us to give up everything to follow Him? Paul gives us a conclusive answer: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?» (Romans 8:32, NIV). In Christ, God gifted us oil of heaven. When the Lord asks us to give up “everything” we have, it is to give us everything He has. David Platt was spot on when he said, “When we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing Him.” My everything are just “trinkets,” but heaven’s “everything” includes infinite treasures. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to exchange our everything for God’s everything?
In 1874, Frances R. Havergal wrote the hymn ”Take My Life and Let It Be.” In one of the stanzas, she wrote,
«Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee;
Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold.»‘
Ms. Havergal says that after she wrote that stanza, she remembered that for many years she had kept jewelry she had worn before becoming a Christian. She had so many that she had no reason to envy a countess’s chest of jewels. Then she told herself she would not continue to withhold her silver and gold, and she decided to give the jewelry to a missionary society so they could use the money to further God’s cause.
What are we withholding from our Father? Today we can tell the Lord, “I give you my everything to receive everything from You.» God wants to fulfill His promise to give us «everything” in Christ (Romans 8:32).
”David Platt, ‘Radical (Miami: Unilit, 2011), p. 28.
”‘ Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald. 2002), no. 330.
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernandez