A question I often ask myself is, “Am I doing enough?” I’m not talking about earning our way to Heaven by trying to do enough good things (impossible, by the way). But having been given such a great gift from God, we have the responsibility to respond. He has lavished so much upon us it is inconceivable to then go through our lives wanting to give nothing in return.
We can’t pay back God, but we certainly can demonstrate our gratefulness through our obedient actions. With that in mind, ask yourself, “Are you doing enough?” What is our honest answer to that question?
A.W. Tozer put it this way: “Before the judgment seat of Christ my service will be judged not by how much I have done but by how much I could have done!” There will no longer be an opportunity to redeem our time. We have only this life to respond to God in obedience. We all have different capacities to demonstrate God to others. But we all have some capacity, and I will argue it is far greater than we are employing today. The words of Tozer taught me more on this subject; it’s not how much we give that matters to God, but how much we have left after we have given. It’s not the size of our gift, but how much of ourselves we have put into the gift. No one has given all they have until they have given all of themselves.
How much are you really giving to God? Odds are you spend far more time gifting yourself than gifting God. Most of us spend our days obeying the culture rather than being obedient disciples. We give our 10% and think we’ve done our share. The problem is how we spend the other 90%. It’s all on us and it’s all on things having no eternal value. It’s the same with our time. We give God an hour or so on Sunday mornings and consider it good for the week. How insulting is that to the One who created us to do amazing things for His glory (Ephesians 2:10, John 14:12)?
We owe Him (quite literally) our lives. In fact, remember when you accepted Christ? You actually gave Him your life. You promised to serve Him and asked Him to rule over everything you did from that point forward. How soon we forget when the siren song of societal pressures begin singing in our ears.
Are you doing enough? Could you look Jesus in the eye and tell Him you are giving all you have for Him? Could you tell Him – to His face – you have held nothing back? I couldn’t, and that’s a problem. The good news is it’s a problem over which we have total control. It’s entirely up to us to give more and to give completely. It’s our choice to obey God or live for ourselves. It’s our choice to let Him be Lord of our life, or admit we lied when we told Him He could be. These are hard decisions, but they are ours to make. So… are you doing enough?