Forty days from now, we will all commemorate Easter– the day our Lord, Jesus the Christ, was raised from the dead after He had submitted himself to the death we were sentenced to have for our sins against God. As such, I want to point our hearts and minds to a passage in the Bible that symbolizes the type of life we should live. It was the same type of life that Jesus lived, and if all of his followers would live the same way, then perhaps the world would be set on a holy fire of revival and change that would alter the fabric of humanity through the love, power and mercy of God. Let’s look at Mark 12:41-44.
And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. – Mark 12:41-44
I don’t want to focus on the amount, nor do I want to point out our failure to give generously, but the intent and passion behind this widow’s offering. She was willing to give everything she had to live on for the righteousness of God (v44). We, as Christians, don’t give enough for the purposes of the kingdom of God, but that’s another story that I don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole at the very moment. We, as Christians, don’t offer our lives totally sold out and dependent on God like this widow did. That being said, we don’t even amount to the dirt kicked up off the ground while trying to follow Jesus, who gave away heaven’s throne to sacrifice himself for us. Sure, it’s easy to give away everything when you have nothing to give like this widow, or like Jesus, who was homeless by the time he was crucified, but for us, in the middle ring of America, it would be impossible to give away everything, sold out for God. If market crashes taught us anything it is to diversify and hedge our bets just in case bubbles burst; and we follow that advice with every arena of life– jobs, relationships, faith, ambition, etc. In fact, I don’t really care that you would diversify your life in every arena, except you should stake your claim in faith in a single person, in a single hope, in a single devotion. What if we would take the next forty days to do what this widow did and put everything we had into our faith treasury? What if we put our energies and dedications and focus into our belief in Jesus Christ? What if, we stopped contributing out of our abundance of time, energy and money, and started to devote that to the calling of God on our lives– the passion that is burning within us? What if we tried doing so for the next forty days? I believe if we did even attempt this, and put everything we had into it, we would do more in the next six weeks than we would have all fifty-two weeks of the year combined. I’m all in with God this Lenten season, will you be?
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