The Importance of ‘ALL’

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Some of the most thrilling episodes in The Bible are when men like Joseph and Daniel show us how to live a life completely devoted to God, with not a hint of a concession. Even in times of temptation and trials, these men stand head and shoulders above many others that we read of. 

So what was their ‘secret’? Quite simply, they decided that they would make no compromises; they would not experiment with what degree of sin they could indulge in before it harmed themselves or others.They trusted God with ‘ALL’ their hearts. They submitted to him in ‘ALL’ their ways’. Not so, Lot! The NLT Study Bible, speaking of Lot, tells us that; “Although he denounced gross evil, Lot preferred Sodom’s sumptuous lifestyle to life in the hills where there was clean living but none of the ‘good life’”.

Lot and his family lived in reasonable comfort in Sodom and Lot held on to his personal belief in God; but finally he could not hold on to both!  It would be one or the other. Peter writes that Lot was tormented by the things that he saw in Sodom and Gomorrah. The  Sodomites were totally unconcerned about their sin but Lot was not.  He understood that his neighbours were living compromised and sinful lives. He understood sin.  As someone once said, “Sodom would have destroyed Lot if the Lord had not destroyed Sodom.”

“However, though he was not wicked himself, he did nothing to remove himself from his evil situation. There is the problem. He lingered. He was willing to coexist with sin.” (John W. Ritenbaugh)

Does this not sound all too familiar? There are areas of sin that Christians today willing co-exist with. Amongst the last words that we read of Jesus speaking as a free man, before his arrest are these,

Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matthew 26:41)

Jesus knew that, like Lot, many of his present and future followers would find it a challenge to submit ‘all’ to God. But that challenge still echoes loud and clear down through the millennia to where we are today.He is still looking for those who will trust Him with ‘all’ their heart. He still calls to us to submit ‘all’ our ways to Him. 

Who will rise to the challenge? Who will refuse to compromise?  God grant, it will be every one of us.

​Pauline Anderson