Giving God our Best?

By: Randall Sidwell

Give God our Best. As a Minister for more than 18 years I have heard this phrase used to try and set a dress code for Church. Here is the thing what if my best isn’t or doesn’t match up to someone else’s best? Or their assumptions of what is best. Like it really matters what we are wearing. Jesus was not born in the best hospital, with the best doctors, or wrapped in the best blankets. No he was born in a manger because there was no room for him or his parents.
Sadly we can make people feel that way today by the standards we sit up within the Church. That’s what the Pharisees and Sadducees had done in the synagogue and temple in Jesus day. If you didn’t wear the right thing or say the right thing then you were not welcome. That is why they couldn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah.
See they had a distorted view of giving God their best. It has to be wrapped up in the quality of our cloths, or what we drive, or what we put in the offering right? Wrong. God seeks our best indeed without a question but it has nothing to do with what we wear, but has everything to do with giving the “Whole Us” Heart, Soul and Mind. Matthew 22:37 “Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

Listen to what James has to say in 2:1-4 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. ² Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. ³ If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” ⁴ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

He goes on to say in verse “⁸ If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”^[a]you are doing right. ⁹ But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”

As we worship God, we give Him ourselves. Romans 12:1 says, " Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship."
We give Him our lives in service to Him as a living sacrifice. In doing this we must give Him our all. Anything we do for God must be our very best. Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37, " Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'" All our heart, soul, and mind, or in other words, our total being must be in our service to God.
Here at 17^th Street Christian Church we ask you to give your Best but it isn’t about what you wear on the outside. It is about worship in spirit and in truth, it is about giving your all to God: heart, soul, and mind.
So come all you who are heavy laden and find rest. Find acceptance. Find grace. Because here at 17^th Street Christian Church we Seek to Know Jesus More Intimately, Love Jesus More Passionately, and Follow Jesus More Intently.