The Things That Are God's

In Matthew 22, the Pharisees come yet again to tempt Jesus, asking Him questions in an attempt to catch Him in His words, that they might find some accusation against Him.  Their interaction is recorded in verses 17-21:

17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21 They say unto him, Cæsar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

The answer to the questions the Pharisees asked - is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar? - is pretty straightforward.  Jesus makes it clear that doing our duty as citizens does not need to interfere with our duty towards God.  After all, we believe in being subject to secular leaders and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law (see Article of Faith 12).

However, there’s a deeper lesson here.  We render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and we know that the tribute money is his because it bears his image.  What, then, is God’s? We bear His image, having been created in the image of God (see Genesis 1:26-27).  Further, as disciples of Christ, we ought to have “the image of God engraven upon [our] countenances” (Alma 5:19).  It is therefore required of us to render unto God the things that are God’s, namely, all that we have and are.  To me, this means much more than dedicating our time and our resources to God and His Church.  I think of Alma 36:37 - “let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.”

This means loving God with all of our hearts, minds, and souls, and prioritizing our relationship with Him over anything else.  It means being willing to obey His commandments and accept His will, even when it doesn’t make sense to us.  It means trusting that Heavenly Father can do more with what we have than we can do on our own.

Of course we know that God can do far more with our resources than we can, but that doesn’t always make it easy to hand them over to Him.  We don’t like not being in control, and the immediate gratification of doing what we want can be so appealing compared to the seemingly distant reward promised if we follow God’s ways.  It takes a lot of trust, a lot of faith, and a lot of self-control to choose to follow Christ when all we can see is a few steps ahead of us.  Sometimes I catch myself trying to convince myself that surely God doesn’t expect me to give Him everything.  He knows my limitations, right?  Of course He does, and not once has He asked for more than I could give with His help.  I have learned that trying to justify giving less of myself can never make me happy and will never lead me to become the person that He knows I can become.  As Elder Bednar has said, “Each of us needs God’s help in surrendering our will to Him.”

I know that we will be able to obtain happiness in this life and eternal glory in the life to come if we will “render unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).  As hard as it has sometimes been, I have never regretted giving too much to the Lord.  Giving is hardly a sacrifice when I receive so much in return.