Maybe We Can’t Give our Hearts to God

Note:  A few days ago, the post on Everyday Servant was about how to give our hearts to God. 

But maybe that post was just plain wrong…  

Maybe we can’t give our hearts to God as a gift…

Check out today’s post and the previous post, and then leave your thoughts in comments…

“I have a gift f or you.” my daughter said, and handed me a small, carefully wrapped package.

Several month s earlier, she had stopped by as she started a several hour drive to a nearby state.

“My headset died,” she said that day. “Do you have one I can borrow?”

“Sure,” I said out loud – while thinking, “It’s my favorite.  Remember to bring it back!”

A few days later, I looked for my headset.  Then I remembered my daughter had it.

As she would say, “No Worries”.  I’d get it back the next time I saw her.

But we talked about other things when we met, and I forgot to ask.  The same thing happened the next time, and the next.

Every morning I looked for the headset.  Every morning I remembered where it was, and told myself…”No worries.”

Today, my daughter handed me a box and said, “I have a gift for you.”

I opened it.

Inside was a brand new headset exactly like the one I had given her.

“Thanks, but you could have just given me back my old headset.”

“Give you back something you already own?  That wouldn’t be a gift, would it?”

She was right.  It would be like tying a ribbon around the shovel I borrowed from a neighbor and calling it a gift when I returned it.

But don’t we do something similar when we give our hearts to God?

Aren’t they His already?

1 John 4:4 But you belong to God, my dear children

1 Corinthians 6:19 …You are not your own;

Why, then do we act heroic when we give time or money or hearts to God?

1 Corinthians 6:19  Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

In every story where there is a giver and receiver, it is the giver who is the hero and the recipient who is grateful.   How backwards is it to cast ourselves as the heroes when we return to God what He gave us in the first place?

Once we know that truth, all gifts to God become acts of worship; acts of worship in which we surrender God’s gifts back to Him, and praise the one and only true hero in all creation.