I think too often when I have read this story I marvel at Christ's wisdom in getting out of the bind the Pharisees thought to put Him or I take this lesson as proof that Christ commands submission to our temporal authorities. But this is usually as far as I go: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's..." Yet the implications of the second half of the verse are its most profound!
How we fail to render to our God the things that are His! We are so much better at giving our temporal leaders their due (especially as tax season rolls back around in the US). And still God receives so little of what we owe Him––perhaps because He doesn't tax audit. And what are God's things? Hardly the mere "ten percent" we grudgingly place in the offering plate as though we were trying to buy off God's claim to our entire being! This week I heard a terrifyingly convicting quote from John Piper regarding our reluctance to give even the minimal tithe: The question of giving is not "how much do I give" but "how much do I dare keep for myself."
God claims our all, our every breath, thought, action, moment. He expects devotion to Him with all our emotion, our will, our strength, and every fiber of our being. Yet how often do we yield even one percent of the total consecration He expects? The stats say that American Christians, among the wealthiest self-professed Christ-followers in history, don't even give 5% of their income. Yet a tithe of one's material gain was simply the minimum for Israel, and they didn't even have the permanent indwelling of the Spirit! Where is the all we should be consecrating to God as the temples in which He chooses to abide?
Father, I give You my all, only to take it back again later today, I know. But I give it to You again and ask You would keep me from my continued attempts to steal it off the altar.
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