4 Reasons Jesus Is Worth Your All
Dr. Ian Hamilton is a husband, father of four, and grandfather of six. He spent thirty-seven years ministering to local churches in Scotland and now continues to serve Christ and His Church as professor of historical theology and president at Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, UK and adjunct professor of applied theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
We were privileged to release his multimedia Bible study, The Nature & Practice of True-Hearted Discipleship, on November 15. This 8-week study guides you back to Scripture in order to examine Jesus’ descriptions of what it means to be His follower.
The following excerpt is from Lesson 2: “Discipleship Is All or Nothing.”
Unqualified commitment to Jesus is because He is worth it.
Unqualified commitment to Jesus is because He is worth it. This is the great issue.
He is worth your everything and your all. Why is He worth your all?
First: because of who He is. He is God the Son who became flesh for us. We must never sever the glory of Christ’s incarnation from the glory of His cross. The inexplicable wonder of Bethlehem lies at the heart of the inexplicable glory of Calvary. John Owen (1616–1683) made this wonderful comment:
Howbeit, this glory [he is speaking about the glory of the hypostatic union],—the glory of the church,—the sole Rock whereon it is built,—the only spring of present grace and future glory.
Are these not remarkable words to ponder? Think who this Jesus is who summons you to make Him unconditional Lord of all you are and of all you have.
Second: because of what He has done. Sadly, the wonder of the cross has become commonplace in modern evangelicalism. When were you, when was I, last “lost in wonder, love and praise,” as we heard about, sang about, prayed about, and preached about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? Look at what Paul says in Galatians 6:14:
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
The unfathomable humiliation of our Savior, which was for us, should move us to yield our bodies as living sacrifices to the worship and service of our Redeemer.
Moment by moment, every hour of every day, our Great High Priest is praying for all His believing people.
Third: because of what He is now doing. The Lord Jesus Christ continues to work on behalf of His people after His cross and resurrection. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25; see also Romans 8:34). Moment by moment, every hour of every day, our Great High Priest is praying for all His believing people. What is He praying? That we will be kept from the evil one. That we will be conformed into His likeness. That we will not make shipwreck of our souls. Are we to imagine our Great High Priest on bended knee before His Father, vocalizing those petitions? I think not. His presence at the right hand of the Father as our triumphant King, the perfect propitiation for our sins, the Victor over sin and death and hell, is His intercession. As the Father beholds His Son and those “wounds yet visible above,” He sees the perfection of His obedient life, death, and resurrection. He sees the triumph of the Crucified. He sees the numberless blessings won for believing sinners through His passion. His very presence is His intercession.
He truly is worth it. The least that we, as saved and forgiven sinners, can do is give the Lord Jesus Christ our all.
Fourth: because of what He will yet one day do. One day, a day ordained from times eternal, our Savior will “descend from the heavens with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). Then God Himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes and make all things new (see Revelation 21:1–7). He truly is worth it. The least that we, as saved and forgiven sinners, can do is give the Lord Jesus Christ our all.
A Closing Question: Have you given Him your all? Are you giving Him your all? If you are a true disciple of Christ, your greatest sorrow will be that you do not always give Him your best. There will not be a day when you do not lament the poverty of your love and the inconsistency of your allegiance. But nonetheless, will you heartily repent and ask for grace to love and serve Him?