All Give, No Take?

The inevitable question had come up about the strange card protector we were using.  We used it to refer to Jesus Christ -- and one player was a bit puzzled when we asked if he believed in Christ.

"I do," he said.  "But I have a hard time believing Jesus would be at a poker table, trying to take all my d**n chips."

This admittedly prompted some soul-searching on our part.  After all, God is a giving God.  And....

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

God gave Jesus Christ for us.  But does that mean God never takes things from us -- even from loyal believers?  There's one big Biblical case which disproves that:

...."Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."  In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. - Job 1:21-22

If Job had been a poker player, he would have been called deep-stacked.  He had massive holdings of livestock (verse 3) -- yet God allowed Satan to take all those blessings away from Job (verses 9-12), including the blessing of good health (2:4-6).  Technically God didn't do the taking, but He permitted it to happen.

God can take things away from us for other reasons as well....

The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets.  So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there. - II Kings 17:22-23

The nation of Israel was in a very nice land -- but God took it away, because the people kept sinning.  So did the coming of Jesus (the Son of God) make things any different?  The Lord said no:

"Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit".... When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus's parables, they knew he was talking about them. - Matthew 21:43, 45

The Pharisees thought they were in line for God's future blessings.  But Jesus's parables (especially the one beginning in verse 33) warned them the blessings would be taken away.

So if you think of God and Jesus as keepers of a big "payoff window" ready to toss out gifts to poker players, you're missing the full picture.  They take things from us, as well.  A future post will examine what we should be ready to give up.