All In

“All in!!!”  Remember back about seven or eight years ago and Texas Hold’em was all the rage?  It seemed to be on ESPN almost every night. People were playing it on computers and signing up trying to get into tournaments. The best part was when they were down to the final table and someone would push all their chips to the center of the table and declare they were “all in”. It meant they were risking everything on winning that hand.

Can you say that you are “all in” on this Christian life or are you just in it for the chance to go to heaven?  There is a Biblical difference between salvation and Lordship. Most Christians have no problem accepting Christ for their salvation but very few sacrifice their life over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Very few say, “God, I am all in!  Do with my life as you please”. That’s Lordship.

Remember when Thomas met Jesus for the first time after the Resurrection?  He was having a hard time believing that Jesus had risen from the dead, but when he saw Jesus for the first time and Jesus instructed Him to put his fingers in the holes in His wrists and to put his hand in His side. Thomas’s reaction was to cry out, “My Lord and my God”.  He was saying that Jesus Christ was God and he was giving over Lordship of his life to Him.

There are really two types of Christians in the world: the saved and the available. The saved thank God for saving them from the debt of their sins, but the available thank God for their salvation and then say use me as You will. That’s what being an “all in” Christian means; being available for whatever it is God wants from you. It’s not easy. It means giving up control of your own life and giving it all to God.

The Apostle Paul gives us an outline of what an “all in” Christian looks like in Romans 12:1-2. He tells us that we are to present ourselves a “living sacrifice” to God. We’ll look into what that means tomorrow as we go through those two verses this week.

Have a great day and God bless.