Luke 20:24–25: “‘Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?’ They answered and said, ‘Caesar’s.’ And He said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.'”

March 3rd, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

The image of the Roman emperor’s head was stamped on the denarius, a small silver coin. So Jesus was saying, if the emperor’s image is on the coin, then it belongs to the emperor. However, the word render meant more than just “give.” It was literally “to pay a debt.” The lesson here is weighty and insightful. Jesus was really asking them, “Whose image are you made in?” The answer was “the image of God,” which leads us to another question. In what way are we made in the image of God?

Humanity possesses many unique intellectual, relational, lingual (language), and artistic qualities that are far superior to anything found in the animal world. Although humanity is corrupted by sin, humans still have the potential to have a relationship with God. We are prone to worship because we sense a need for the transcendent, and so we seek for God. So what about us belongs to God? We know that a portion of every dollar we earn belongs to Caesar. And our money does belong to God, but we owe Him much more than money—we owe Him ourselves, completely. Our bodies belong to Him: brains and hearts included.

One of the dumbest remarks we hear today is: “It’s my body; I’ll do with it as I please.” This ignorant statement is not true because our bodies are God’s creation, twice over; once because He knit us together in our mother’s womb, and twice because He bought us at great personal expense to Himself. We are only temporary inhabitants of a rented room. It is also an ignorant statement because when we do what we please with our bodies, we usually do ourselves harm.

“LORD, we want to give to God the things that are God’s. We give our bodies, souls, and spirits to serve You, so we ask that You would please use us this day.”