For God’s Sake
The Pharisees, wanting to silence Jesus, questioned him on the Roman tax. “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” The trap they had laid was this: if Jesus answered that it was lawful, he would anger the people; if he answered that the tax was unlawful, the Pharisees could tell the Roman authorities he was fueling sedition. Jesus’ answer was brilliant. “Show me the coin for the tax.” They produced a denarius. “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” Jesus asked. “Caesar’s” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Therefore render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
How does this apply to our income taxes? I’ll leave that to the tax professionals. What interests me is the second half of Jesus’ answer: render unto God the things that are God’s. What are the things that are God’s? Jesus said nothing more on the subject, but from other Scripture texts we gain an answer. For instance, Psalm 24:1 (NIV) says, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” What things are God’s? Everything! Including you and me! We must give to God ourselves and all that we have. Simple enough?
Let me be your “spiritual tax accountant” for a moment. We each have the same number of hours in a week – 168 – over half of which we spend sleeping and working. The rest of our week is sliced up into various activities like eating, personal hygiene, family-time, chores, running errands and recreation. A Christian will also carve out time to attend a worship service, perhaps a Bible study, and maybe for daily prayer and Bible reading. That “slice” of the Christian’s week is anywhere from 2-6 hours a week, less than 4% of our week that we give to God. That’s not much, we pay higher percentages in taxes. How do we give God a bigger slice of the pie? God doesn’t want a bigger slice of the pie – he wants the whole pie!
God wants us to glorify him in all things, in our eating, our drinking, in whatever we do (1 Cor. 10:31). We glorify God by acknowledging that we belong to him, by living our lives in a manner that pleases Him, living faithful, diligent and truthful lives. We live our lives for Him, for His glory. When we mess up, we fess up. When we are praised for things we have done, we give God the glory. If we are rewarded, we give God thanks. It will take a lifetime to learn how to glorify God in all things – but it will be a life lived well.