You Want a Piece of Me?

Careful, now - please don't jump to conclusions about our title.  We're not talking about fighting or cyber-bullying. We're talking about what one radio report calls "diversifying your poker portfolio."

NPR reported this week that one of the players at a World Series of Poker Main Event final table didn't really win millions of dollars after all. The radio story didn't explain when it happened, but Jake Balsiger finished third in 2012. His listed winnings are $3.799,073. But his real take-home check was much less than one million.

Why? Because other players "invested" in Balsiger - buying a percentage of his winnings, in exchange for helping to pay his buy-in fee. At the Main Event, that's a steep $10,000.  It's a bit like an actor or performer hiring a talent agent to handle bookings and negotiations.


One of Balsiger's "investors" bought shares in several other WSOP players as well.  But what strikes us about this arrangement is that it goes against one of the basic concepts of poker. When a player goes "all in," he puts all his chips in the middle. Not anyone else's, unless they choose to push as well. And not 75 percent of his chips, unless he's called by someone with less.

If you think God works in the "portfolio" mode, we think you're mistaken. Jesus made clear God doesn't want simply a 10 or 15-percent commitment on your part....

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. - Matthew 6:24

Straddling is the stuff of blackjack or roulette. It should not be the stuff of believers....

And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, "If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only...." - I Samuel 7:3

It's ultimately about commitment - a whole-hearted commitment. Do you have enough faith in God to invest everything you have in Him and His Son?  To borrow from a classic hymn: are you surrendering "all in?"