There is a moment...in fact there are many...when we realise the cost. We realise how much the bible, God, Jesus, this whole thing is going to cost us. We speak the words and there is a moment when we step back and listen to what we are saying, what we are promising, what we desire in our hearts and proclaim and say with our mouths...and it hits us...the cost.

The cost of being in the world and not of it is that we cannot live with one foot in one foot out. We cannot live in compromise. If we are not of this world thn it grossly changes how we view it, live in it and most importantly...embrace it. I watched TV this holiday which alone is something i hae not done for a while, and I ended up in a sobing heap yesterday and today feeling the need for a full spiritual shower. The thing is, when we begin to be transformed in the renewing of our minds so that we truly know how to live not of this world and totally, radically lovers of Jesus, we see it as He sees it, we grieve as He grieves and we love as He loves. All of a sudden the cost is everything and the gain is everything.

But we cannot gain with full hands. We must give it all up....even the tradition, the seemingly harmless, the one offs, everything. For too long have we compromised and clung onto tiny things that take up precious hand space, preventing us from fully embracing what God has for us. Only when we understand the radical nature of the bible and in love and knowledge that its true, embrace it, will we even come close to living as Jesus lived.

He cared enough to come to this earth....do we care enough to leave it all behind?