My discipleship for Jesus Christ will mean nothing unless I consider my life cheap for Him. Paul said, “I consider my life worth nothing to me” (Acts 20:24, NIV). He was willing to cheapen himself for the gospel, and that cheap view of his own welfare and safety resulted in homelessness, danger, and finally death. If I regard my life of infinite value and protect and pamper it, I will certainly be more comfortable, and more fruitless.
Abraham Lincoln said, “Love destroys.” He was right. I cannot love Jesus Christ without destroying many things, one of which is the price tag I put on my life. “The love of Christ … constrains [presses] me” (2 Corinthians 5:14, Williams). If I still think of my salvation as a security blanket or a comfort station, I have sadly missed the meaning of Christ’s weeping over Jerusalem, the agony of Calvary, and the lostness of men.
Our emphasis on “the gospel of grace” has led us to think of our salvation as cheap and easy, the very opposite of what God intended. We think in terms of safety, preservation, and escape. Our faith is often a device to escape the eternal darkness, nothing more. Can we say that our attachment to God is due to our insatiable desire for Him as a person and our overwhelming desire to do His will, regardless of the cost?
I cannot expect to come to the end of my life fruit-laden unless I have shed tears, and perhaps blood, in the field. God will not examine me for jolliness or agreeableness, but for scars, the marks of a love that was willing to bear the cost. If my salvation has not carried me that far, I may have to hang my head in shame. But, thank God, He is able to carry me farther, past “mere salvation” and on to the kind of life that becomes “more precious than gold that perisheth” (1 Peter 1:7, ASV) in His sight.
“But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking for. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’” (Mark 10:38).
Daily with the King 