Give God Your Best

“And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work or our hands.” (Psalm 90:17)

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of “giving God my best”…

And I’m not saying that I just wake up every day dwelling on this concept because I’m such a great Christian. But more so I’ve been thinking about this because God has been challenging me and encouraging me to grow in this area.

When you think about it, the concept of “giving God our best” is such a broad topic that can really transcend into so many different areas of our lives. I mean what does that look like practically? And what does it look like to grow in this area?

Do I need to do more? Give more? Love more?

Is He really even challenging me to change my behavior; or is God saying that I need to change my attitude WHILE I’m doing/ giving/ loving?

It could be a combination of all of the above, or it could be something completely different that God will reveal to me in His timing. But I have to admit that while reading 1 Chronicles the past few weeks, I’ve been really inspired by the way that David gave God his “best” in a situation where he could have been tempted to halfheartedly serve the Lord…

Now picture this…

King David was living in a beautiful palace (as most kings did back then). The Bible says that he was “settled” (NLT) or “dwelling” (KNJV) in his house. So I’m assuming that David was at home relaxing when he became distraught by the fact that the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant was outside under a tent while he, a mere man, was living in a beautiful house. He mentions this to Nathan the prophet, and initially, it seemed like Nathan was giving David his blessing to correct this “imbalance” in whatever way David saw fit.

(1 Chronicles 17:1-2).

David’s heart was definitely in the right place, and I imagine he was probably excited to do something awesome for the Lord. He may have even started ideating about what the Lord’s Temple would look like at the conclusion of his conversation with Nathan, but God had a different plan in mind, and told David that he would not be the one to build the temple (1 Chronicles 17:3-12).

I wonder what my response would have been after that let down…

David could have responded to this disappointing news in so many ungodly ways. I mean at the very least, he could have resented God’s decision, but the Bible doesn’t describe David reacting in this way. David very humbly responds to this news (1 Chronicles 17:16-20), and when we fast forward to 1 Chronicles 22, we see David in the beginning stages of making the necessary preparations for the temple to be built. Then in chapters 23-27 we see David spending a ton of time making sure that EVERY…SINGLE…DETAIL was planned for.He gathered funds and materials so that the temple could be built, and he even took the time to delegate tasks and planned out the worship services.

Now practically speaking, all of this planning etc. was necessary. I mean it’s not like the temple was going to build itself or just magically appear. But all of David’s effort is super inspiring to me because he gave God his absolute best in regards to his time, talent, and resources even AFTER God told him that someone else was going to get the privilege of actually building the Lord’s Temple.

David was “ALL-IN” for real!!!

…and the truth of the matter is that I should be “all-in” simply because of this fact: EVERYTHING I am…All I am privileged to do…And all that I have is a gift from the Lord. David’s example should inspire me to JUMP at the opportunity to GET TO give God my best!

So much more could be said about this because as I said earlier, this concept transcends across so many areas of our lives…

Lord help us to grow together in this area…Help us to give you our “best”, whatever that looks like, knowing that you DESERVE our BEST Today…Tomorrow…and Forever!

By: Tamara McMillan