Give Him The Gold

Can you imagine walking across the stage after four years of arduous work and watching as your diploma gets handed to someone else?

Or journeying down the aisle after months of planning to see your beloved holding someone else’s hands? Or crossing the finish line first, only to watch someone else be awarded the gold medal?

If you’re anything like me, those examples fill you with fury! As a competitive achiever, I can’t imagine putting in the work, fighting for what I want, and then watching what I rightfully deserve being handed to someone else.

That righteous anger helps us understand a fraction of the jealousy God feels for us. God created mankind in His image. Designed and crafted us with care, in the hopes that we’d have a beautiful relationship with Him. And He watches as mankind repeatedly chooses other things to worship. The very thing He breathed life into, now lives for something else. And the idols we do choose are ultimately destructive to our lives and well-being!

God asks for our first:

You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts.

- Deuteronomy 12:17

God asks for our loyalty:

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…

- Exodus 20:5

God doesn’t just deserve gold, He IS gold! He is the only thing that is worthy of love and affection. And yet we over and over again hand Him silver. We place Him in a slot on Sunday morning for 60 minutes. Maybe we hand him a few prayers throughout the week. But something else is actually wearing the gold medal. Something else is actually sitting on the throne.

Why do we always choose the wrong gold medalist? Why do our hearts always seek the thing that hurts us? Why can’t we just give Him the first?

I fear we don’t trust Him for the rest. I think we hold tightly onto the rest of our lives because we fear that God won’t really bless us. He doesn’t really have our good in mind. So we’ll give Him the leftovers, but we won’t trust Him with the most important stuff. That’s better left in our hands.

If we really knew the heart of our Father, if we really knew His vast, immense, intentional love for us, there would be no question who would be on the first place platform. His jealousy doesn’t come from insecurity, it comes from deep love, care, and protection of us. He wants our affection because He has our best in mind. True love is always rightfully jealous.

What are you giving the gold to today? If you’re honest, in your innermost thoughts and feelings, what is the thing you give your first to? Is it the job you must maintain so you don’t feel like a failure? Is it the money that you must secure in order to look as capable as your next-door neighbor? Is it the relationship that will finally make you feel like enough?

I don’t know what’s on your gold platform. But I know who really deserves it. I know who has your best interest in mind.

Famous theologian C.H. Spurgeon writes,

Since He is the only God, the Creator of heaven and earth, He cannot endure that any creature of His own hands, or fiction of a creature’s imagination should be thrust into His throne, and be made to wear His crown.

Put Him on his throne today. Let go of the idols. Retrain your heart to come back to the only one who is truly deserving of your worship.

Give Him the gold.

Cristina Schmitter

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