I was on the platform last Sunday worshipping with our congregation and our team. I was parked behind the keyboard considering what I would say to introduce the tithe and offering segment in our church. The Holy Spirit, the great interrupter, had something else for me to consider. We had just finished our three-song set, the last being Chris Tomlin’s “At the Cross (Love Ran Red).” My mind was shifting to the “10% tithe message” when I looked down and I saw these words from the song-they froze me.
“I owe all to You, I owe all to You, Jesus.”
The Holy Spirit plucked me out of my own mental math of rationalizing 10% for tithing into the complete embrace of the never partial, fully accessible, God of 100%. The shift was staggering. I could barely maintain. I was indescribably grateful.
It’s one thing to have this happen while sitting in my favorite chair reading His Word at 5:12 AM in the privacy of my home. That happens routinely. It’s quite another to have this happen with 70 sets of eyes in the house and countless additional eyes looking from online. I was left with no words.
Hard to capture what flashed into my spirit and my heart at that moment. If I could write in tongues, it would more aptly describe the experience. My best attempt would be I felt the power and love of the “Allness” (not a word) of God. I was absolutely entombed with gratitude for this God who has interceded in my life, not in paltry 10% increments, but completely with all blessings, provision, and protection. I was just grateful for the fully loving, 100% God. I owe it all to You.
My gratitude well runs deep. I live blessed with a lovely wife, perfect church, good job, beautiful home, and many other blessings, for these I am most grateful. But there are areas of a man's life where the hand of God moves that nothing else can impact, and it's in those times, and in those places, because of what He's done that I am humbly and dependently grateful for the God of All. The Holy Spirit was pointing me to those places.
When I was 36 years old, God showed up in a small Baptist church just outside Portland, Oregon and invited a very lost Christopher Augustine (me) into eternity. A fully unsaved man enters the building. God spoke to my heart and through His grace I left that church 100% saved. I owe it All to you.
In April of 2013, I was running on a treadmill in a rec center and received an immediate and alarming diagnosis. “Hey, you’re dead.” My heart stopped and I stopped breathing. To make matters worse, no one else was in the room with me-nobody saw me go down. This is a perilous situation. Two souls came to my rescue. The first was a woman who happened to be walking by about 30 seconds later. She saw me on the ground and ran to the front desk to alert the staff. Within two minutes the next soul, an unassuming rec center worker showed up with AED paddles and started my heart and resuscitated my breathing. I was transported to the hospital for emergency quadruple bypass surgery. Doctors said I had less than 5% chance of survival having my heart stop that far from a hospital. Those are man’s odds. But the God of all plowed through those odds and showed up 100% this time to save my physical existence. I owe it all to You.
I'm a man given to thinking. This is how I function. Sometimes to a fault. But in that moment on the platform, with graciousness, the Holy Spirit said, "Don't always be thinking about what you're doing, but what He has already done. Trust in that. Let gratitude from your heart occupy your mind."
Not fully sure all of what occurred on that platform last Sunday, but this I do know, God never fails to give us His all. The never lacking, always steadfast, 100% loving God. We should yield to Him in the same manner. It is my endeavor.
With gratitude that cannot be expressed in words alone, I owe it all to You, Jesus.