Throwing scraps at God

So I'm reading this book Crazy Love by Francis Chan and the last chapter jacked me up a little bit. I'm wrestling with the reality that when I read God's Word, the Bible, my temptation in applying it to my life is not to apply it fully - it's to apply it in my life so that I'm staying just ahead of the people around me. The image Chan uses in the book is that the bones I'm throwing at God have more meat on them than the bones others are throwing, so I must be doing just fine. Except I'm still just throwing scraps at God!

And I think as someone working in campus ministry, this is a constant thing I wrestle with. I don't have someone over me challenging me to grow all the time, challenging the ways that I may water down my applications of the Bible to my life. Instead, it's really easy for me to do just enough to be ahead of my students and to be justified in their eyes. But how I stand in their eyes doesn't really matter! How I stand before God is what matters! And I'm throwing Him scraps. Not cool! We need to pray in our rich, confused culture that God would open our eyes every day to look at His Word in raw, honest ways and let it transform our lives! I don't want to deceive myself into thinking that I'm giving God my all and find out someday that I was throwing Him scraps. It's not about gaining His approval - it's what He deserves because of His ridiculous love for me.

"But when you present the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?
And when you present the lame and sick, is it not evil?
Why not offer it to your governor? Would he be pleased
with you? Or would he receive you kindly? says the Lord.

- Malachi 1:8 -