A Complete Surrender to the God who loves us

“I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today” goes a chorus in a song. But do we really mean it? Luke 21:1-4 relates the incident of Jesus in the temple. “And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.” 

 Jesus wanted his disciples to learn from this. We read about the same incident in Mark 12:43 “Jesus, calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury”. Jesus showed that this was a true offering when the widow put in her all. From a human point of view, the widow was foolish. She only had two coins to spare. She could have at least kept one coin back for herself. By giving away both coins, she was giving away her life. But Jesus said her two coins together were more valuable than all the offerings of the rich people. This is true in our Christian life too. We need to totally commit and surrender everything to God. She sacrificed everything she had to live on and thus even her life. This is the true sacrifice that God values. She did this because she loved God deeply. She didn’t care about her future. Out of her deep love, she sacrificed everything to God and trusted God to take care of her future. John 03:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This was the maximum that she could do. God values this. It is not about quantity but quality. He looks at the heart and the motive behind it. The rich gave out of their surplus. It was not a sacrifice to them.There is a story in which a chicken and cow were once walking down the road. They saw a hiring restaurant that advertised omelet and beef specials for breakfast and they decided to take up work there. The chicken proudly said to the cow, “Look! I provide them with eggs for the omelettes”. The cow replied, “But I give away my life so that they may have beef”. This is the difference between contribution and sacrifice. The hen symbolizes contribution while the cow symbolizes sacrifice. Contribution may have value before men, but it has no value before God. Contribution is like the wood, hay and straw talked about in 1 Corinthians 03:12. In 2 Samuel 24:24, King David says “I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing.”.

In Romans 08:35-38, Paul is convinced of one thing; God’s love. No matter what happens that fact won’t change. In 1 King 17:09-16, we read the story of the widow of Zarephath. She sacrifices her life, her final meal, in order to serve Elijah, God’s prophet and in return, God takes care of her needs and saves her life. We read of another woman in Mark 14:3-9, who comes to Jesus and pours costly perfume over his head. For her the expensive perfume was nothing compared to serving God. These instances show that God looks for those who give their maximum for him. In John 21:15, Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”.The difference between a son and a servant is the love they have for their master or father. A servant does not love his master as much and tries to do the minimum he can for him. On the other hand, a son loves his father very deeply and will give his maximum in order to please his father. We are called to be the children of God and so we too should do the maximum we can for our heavenly father. What is the maximum we can do? It is completely surrendering our body to God. Paul says in Romans 12:1,“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” It is not a religious service but a spiritual one. We have to lead our lives in such a way so as to present ourselves as a holy sacrifice to God. As it says in 1 Corinthians 6:19,20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body.” We are the temple of God, and we should surrender ourselves completely to God, doing our maximum to serve God so that His name be glorified in our body.

May God bless us all.

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