give him your best - by Bubba Garner

Give Him Your Best

by Bubba Garner
Southside Church of Christ
Pasadena, Texas

If we’re not careful, the passage of time can turn that which is special into that which is ordinary and commonplace. Once we have been engaged in some activity for a lengthy period, we often grow accustomed to doing mediocre work—whether it be at school, on the job, or even in our hobbies and other areas of interest. We do the bare minimum, just enough to get by, barely sufficient for the task, and even that much is done without our full intensity. Can you imagine if everyone worked this way? What if brain surgeons and airplane mechanics approached their daily activities with the spirit of levity with which we often approach our own responsibilities?

Solomon said, “whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might” (Eccl. 9:10). He speaks to the need of giving our best and our all no matter what we are doing as this not only gives us a greater sense of accomplishment, but also finds favor with God. We must not allow the worship service to become some customary event in which we simply “go through the motions.” We should have the same genuineness and sacredness that the disciples had the first time they ever met on the Lord’s day and the first time they ever observed the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord rebuked the priests of the Old Law because they offered the lame, blind, and sick for sacrifice, that which they would never offer to the governor. Not only that, they were complaining about what little they did offer by saying, “my, how tiresome it is!” (Malachi 1:8, 13). The Lord told them that He would rather have no sacrifice at all than for them to pollute and defile His altar with substandard ones. “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar!” (Malachi 1:10).

I shudder to think that this might be a picture of what we are offering. What service do we render when we don’t make preparation for the period of worship by getting sufficient rest, preparing for Bible class, having readiness of mind? What great sacrifice do we make when we spend more on Sunday dinner than we do on the Sunday contribution? He gave the best of heaven and deserves the best of what we have to offer in return. This is true no matter how long you have been a Christian and regardless of how many times you have taken the Lord’s Supper. Just as His care for us is ageless, our devotion to Him ought not to dim or tarnish with the passage of time.

I wonder if the Lord would rather we “shut the gates” of worship than to continue giving Him second-rate service. Give Him your best today; give Him your life, give Him your soul, give Him your all.