How Much Is Too Much To Give?

How much is too much to give to Jesus?

Can you give too much of your time to Him? Too much of your energy? Too much of your resources? Too much of your life? Is there a limit to how devoted and surrendered you should be? Can expressions of love and devotion to Jesus ever be too costly and extravagant?

THAT’S TOO MUCH

I remember years ago hearing a sermon from a pastor where he talked about giving a commencement speech at a high school graduation. His message was about holding nothing back. He told missionary stories, He talked about dying to self, and he expounded on the glories of Christ. He did all he could to convince these young students that Jesus was worthy of the greatest and most radical sacrifices; that He was worthy of their whole lives. After the speech, a father of one of the students, a Christian himself, found the pastor and began rebuking him, saying something to the degree of, “How dare you try and persuade my daughter toward this kind of sacrifice. Loving Jesus is fine, but we don’t want it to consume her life.”

I was so blown away by that story when I heard it, that someone could claim to love Jesus and yet put limits on how much He is worth. But as the years have gone by, I have since realized that even if I don’t say it like that father did, I live it. Everyday I live like Jesus is only worth a tenth of my finances, only worth a quarter of my energy and only worth two-thirds of my life. I hold back from going all in because I rationalize in my head that giving Him everything would be unreasonable. It would be foolish and wasteful. And obviously Jesus wouldn’t want me to be foolish and wasteful with the things He has given me.

A BEAUTIFUL THING

For the last week or so I have been stuck in Matthew 26, reading over and over the story of the woman who anoints Jesus. This woman (who was Mary, according to John’s gospel) takes an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and pours it all over Jesus’ head while he reclines at the table in Simon the Leper’s house. Now, to our twenty-first century minds it is such a wild story. Why would anyone do such a thing? But at the time it was a pretty normal situation. It was just good hospitality in the first century to anoint your guest’s heads with oil, especially distinguished guests. The crazy part seems to be not that she anointed Jesus’ head, but just how much of the expensive ointment she anointed Him with.

As soon as the disciples see it, they say, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor” (Mat. 26-8-9). Their interpretation of the event is that the woman wasted this ointment on Jesus. It was irrational, illogical, unwise, foolish and wasteful to put it all on His head. She should have perhaps put a little bit on Him and used the rest for a different and more rational purpose. But the woman clearly wasn’t thinking about what the most rational thing to do was. She was interested in performing a lavish gesture of love, obviously because she thought Jesus was worthy of it. She thought that this would be a good use of what she had.

Well, somehow Jesus becomes aware that the disciples are grumbling about this woman’s actions and he speaks directly to them, beginning with these words, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mat. 26.10).

EVERYTHING

Put it all together. The woman makes an incredibly costly and extravagant sacrifice to honor Jesus. She dumps out the entire bottle of what Matthew says is a “very expensive ointment.” If John’s account of Mary anointing Jesus is in fact this same story, then it’s a bottle worth tens of thousands of dollars, upwards of an average year’s salary. What a waste! From a logical and rational standpoint, the disciples are absolutely right. The bottle could have been sold and the money could have gone to the poor or to a thousand other things. You would think Jesus would have rebuked the woman for being a bad steward. Instead, he approves wholeheartedly of what she has done. He welcomes it. He says to his disciples with the woman probably in ear shot, “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

The more I read this story the more I am convinced that when it comes to us giving to Jesus, there is no such thing as waste. There is no surrender too great, no act of devotion too strong, and no gift too extravagant, because He is worth it. He is worthy of it. If the living creatures can say in the book of Revelation, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing,” then He worthy of anything I could possibly give, even the entirety of my short little life on this earth (Rev. 5.12).

The reality is that a Christian life lived well, will always look strange to others; it will look like a waste. But that is ok, because at the end of the day all that matters is if the One whom we are living for approves of how we have lived. Giving your life to Jesus on the mission field may look like a waste to the world, but Jesus says, “He/she has done a beautiful thing to me.” Giving your finances to furthering the work of Christ in the world may look like a waste to even people in the church, but Jesus, “He/she has done a beautiful thing to me.” Laying down your time, your career, your energy, your resources at the feet of Christ may seem to everyone around you too radical of a sacrifice, but Jesus says “He/she has done a beautiful thing to me.”

While we think about how we will live for Jesus today, and tomorrow and next year, the question we should ask should never be, “Is this too much to give to Jesus?”

If the woman with the alabaster jar has taught me anything, it is that Jesus is worthy of it all.

 

Books and Death

Brevard Childs, the late Old Testament professor, wrote in the intro to his Biblical Theology

“From my library shelves the great volumes of the Fathers, school-men and reformers look down invitingly. I have also acquired over the years many of the great classics of the Reformed and Lutheran post reformation tradition. However, life is too short for a biblical specialist to do more than read selectively and dabble here and there.”

You really don’t even need to know the context to grasp the quote. Simply put, Childs just understood that he couldn’t read everything. He didn’t have enough time.

In my own life books have taken on a powerful role in reminding me daily that my days are limited. Maybe it is just because I am a slow reader, but I can’t even glance at the unread books which sit there haunting me from their designated shelf space without realizing that there are a limited number of books I have time left on this earth to read. This reality is accentuated by the fact that I have a list of books in my head of which I want to read and which are not even on the shelf yet and yet which I know, again, amount to more reading time than I have left.

It is strange the things the Lord can use to remind us of and reinforce biblical truths. Who would ever think that books could have such a morbid and prophetic type voice, but they do, at least for me. They speak before I even crack the cover, saying in what I imagine to be an old scratchy, oxfordish, baritone sounding voice, something like, “You’re running out of time, choose wisely.” They help me, at least for a moment, to recover a right sense of my own finitude, and to be honest that is worth more than all the words that fill their pages.

A Limited amount of life

As far as I have experienced, it is really only when a person grasps the limits of their own life that they begin to use their life wisely. Think about money as the analogy: When you assume your supply of dollars is endless you don’t get wise with your spending, you get frivolous; you waste it because there is (allegedly) an abundance of it. But when you realize that you only have so much money and on top of that that you only have so much time in your life to make money, you start to account for every dollar and maybe even every penny; you begin to think about where every penny and dollar go.

I don’t think that time works much differently than money. When you start to take account of your time, that is when you start to think about how every hour and day are spent; you go from spending your time frivolously to spending it intentionally. And when do you start to take account of your time? You start to take account of it when you realize that it is limited, and that unlike money there will be no chance to make more.

Making the Best Use of Your Time

Again, for me it is books that remind me often of my finite life. Of course, those books aren’t saying anything new, they are just pointing me back to the Scriptures and reawakening the many verses living in the back of my mind that speak this very truth.

Job 14.1-2 “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.”

Psalm 39.5 “Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”

Psalm 89.47 “Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man!”

Psalm 103.15 “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.”

1 Peter 1.24-25 “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

If there are only so many books you have time to read, choose wisely. If there is only so much money you have to spend, spend wisely. If there are only so many days and hours you have to live, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time…” (Ephesians 5.15-16)