Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you; love him with all you’ve got! (Deuteronomy 6:5, MSG)
C.S. Lewis wrote, “If Christianity is false, it is of no importance. If it is true, it is of infinite importance. What can never be said is that it is moderately important.”
How important is your golf game? How about your job and family or your pursuits of pleasure? I remember a speaker years ago presenting this convicting challenge: “Rank the following in order of importance in your life: faith, family, career, and leisure time.”
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once told his players: “Gentlemen, it is faith, family, and then football!” A player then responded, “I think sometimes he gets the order confused.”
How would you rank faith, family, career, and leisure time, these four tenets of our life? Today’s verse boldly proclaims that God should be the top priority. And if he is so, this should be reflected in all we do with our family, our career, and even our leisure time. All our life should reflect God as the priority and become our conviction. The late Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary said, “Belief is something we can argue about. Conviction is something we would die for.” Our genuine faith spills over into all of life, not just our quiet time with God.
William Rees uncovered this so well in his poem, “Three Dollars Worth of God”:
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,
but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.
I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Here is the rub. We have some faith and a little knowledge. We sincerely want to live out the commands of our Savior, but life, job, and leisure time crowd out what is most important. Jeff Hopper recently stated in a Links Devotional, “I’m not sure I want to love like this (wholeheartedly), but because Jesus showed the way, I know I must.”
The message of salvation through grace can literally change our lives and our priorities. When God changes us, our faith then becomes our life in every arena. Our grateful response is generous gratitude to the one who still loves us very much. That’s of infinite importance: Love God, your God, with your whole heart. Because he first loved us, love him with all that’s in you; love him with all you’ve got!
—
Randy Wolff
July 7, 2015
Copyright 2015 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.