I am All In Are You?
Isaiah 29:12-14 Amplified Bible (AMP)
12And when the book is given to him who is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray you, he says, I cannot read. 13And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips but remove their hearts and minds far from Me, and their fear and reverence for Me are a commandment of men that is learned by repetition [without any thought as to the meaning], 14Therefore, behold! I will again do marvelous things with this people, marvelous and astonishing things; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their discerning men will vanish or be hidden.
Last week, we were watching an Unsung about the singing group Atlantic Starr and it reminded me of many of the songs that I loved as a teenager, and it was fun to take that look back because I grew up with siblings of the people in this band and was exposed to them, before they were. As I heard the song “If Your Heart Isn’t In It,” God spoke to me that is how He is often times feeling with us; that our heart isn’t in it, whereas it concerns Him and our relationship with Him. The last verse and the chorus said, “You treat me like a stranger…As if I wasn't there…Oh baby, I waited for a miracle…To make you show that you care…If your heart isn't in it…Why can't you tell me so? If my heart wasn't in it…I'd have gone long ago…If your heart isn't in it…Why keep me hangin' on? Just tell me and I'll be gone…From your life.” As I heard the words and thought about many times in my life, where it was easy for me to ignore God calling me to come and worship or bow down before Him my maker, my heart hurt and I felt sick.
God’s heart is always in it with us. He loved us while we were yet in sin and sent Christ to die for us so that we could have relationship with Him and gain eternal life. Something we had lost, because “our heart” wasn’t it in. When our heart is in something we apply maximum effort and we go into it with guns blazing and we do by any means necessary, but why is it as it stands with God we want to give him what is left, and sometimes nothing at all. We want to ignore the call on our lives, we don’t want to give all of ourselves to Him because then He will be able to have a say in our lives, or He will ask us to do many things that our flesh would not agree with. We would have to give up control and manipulation of situations, other people and even with Him. We would have someone actually expecting something from us. But isn’t it funny that we can and do expect from God every chance we get, with every waking moment and with every need that we face, but when that need is met we find it easy to ignore Him, bypass Him, and tune Him out when He is calling, asking, speaking and sometimes even begging. When we want to be promoted, accepted or we want elevation, we give our all, and that is to a man, but if God ask for all of us, what would our response be?
To get all that God has for us we have to be willing to give all we have and are to Him. The saying goes “it is all or nothing.” You are either all in or all out. The Bible tells us, “I know your [record of] works and what you are doing; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!16So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth! 17For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Revelations 3:15-17). God doesn’t want to be ignored or a God of our convenience. We need to give as much to Him as we know that we desire back from Him. Put our whole self in the mix, our whole heart into our service and obedience to His will. Because if our heart isn’t in it, how fair is it for us to expect that God’s heart be in our situation? 


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