All in All

There are paradoxes in our faith. Some of them are confusing, some of them I find rather glorious, but they’re there. The first shall be last, lose your life to gain it, there’s no shortage. Sort of like Matt Chandler says, I understand enough about God to know that I’ll never completely understand Him, this side of Heaven (my paraphrase).

This week and weekend as I was preparing for worship I spent some time thinking about one of those kinds of things – the idea of “all”. It appears all the time in reference to a relationship with Christ, and there are countless examples in scripture. But, like a coin or a sweet mix tape, there’s 2 sides.

On one hand it’s repeatedly modeled for us that a relationship with Jesus means “leaving it all behind”. The so-called ‘rich young ruler’ in Mark 10 is told to sell it all and give it away to the poor to follow Christ. A couple chapters later we read the story of the woman who gave all the money she had and Christ admonished her for it. Over in Luke we read about the disciples first encounters with Jesus. Levi/Matthew “got up, left everything and followed (Jesus)”, it tells us in chapter 5. The same chapter tells us how Jesus used a fishing analogy to call some fishermen who “left everything and followed him”. Later in Luke, chapter 14, we read the words, “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple”.

All. Everything. The whole shebang. Got it.

I think sometimes we have difficulty doing that particularly in our worship. It’s tough to “leave it all behind”, especially if you’re referring to things like our focus, our attitude, our inhibitions, our guilt, our judgement, our insecurities…some of that stuff is tough to leave at the door, isn’t it? Still I think when we gather for corporate worship, our mandate as worshipers is to do just that – leave it behind. My boss and pal Pastor Gord always says, “He can be the focus, or we can be the focus, but we can’t both be the focus”.

As worship leaders part of our role is often in shepherding the collective and individual focus of the group. We’re charged with reminding our congregations of why we’re there and who the focus needs to be. We need to use everything at our disposal to paint a picture of God that leaves no room for attention to anything or anyone else.

The end. Oh, wait. What about the other side of that proverbial mix tape?

The funny thing is, when we leave it all, we’re able to offer it all.

I just blew my mind.

Hang with me, here.

When the disciples left everything behind to follow Christ, their new “all” became entirely focused on Him. The new reality that they embraced the second they left everything in their dust meant everything from that moment forward was focused on who they were following. Sure, it ebbed and flowed because they were human, no doubt, but I hope you see what I’m getting at conceptually.

We’re asked to leave it all behind when we come to Christ, and in the same breath to bring and offer everything to Him as well. Just read Psalm 150, for example, and look at that laundry list that culminates in, “let everything that has breath praise the Lord”. It’s almost like our relinquishing of everything frees us up to truly offer everything. My friend Sarah put it this way: “When we follow Christ we’re called to give it ALL up, and when we come to worship we are called to bring it ALL to offer up“.

So, my encouragement for us is to consider both sides of the “all coin” in our worship and in our leadership. What do we need to leave behind that we haven’t? What do we need to bring that we haven’t? All of it.

“You are my strength when I am weak
You are the treasure that I seek
You are my all in all.”
(Dennis Jernigan)