You Get Both

I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.

Leviticus 25:38

In this verse, God tells us that He brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt for two reasons:
1. To give them the land of Canaan.
2. To be their God.

Notice that they didn’t get to pick and choose.  They didn’t get to say “thank you very much for this great land of Canaan, but we really don’t want you to be our God”.  They also didn’t get to say “we appreciate you being a powerful God and helping us and providing for us, but we would really rather go back and live in Egypt”.  He brought them out to give them the land and to be their God.

Sometimes we want to pick and choose what we want out of the Christian life.  We might want God to save us from going to Hell when we die, but we don’t really want anything else.  We might want God to bless us and answer all our prayers, but we don’t want to “go overboard” with obeying Him and doing what He says.  But the truth is, we don’t get to choose.  If we want the Lord, we have to want all of Him.