Eternal Life Costs Your Life
Since the very beginning, God has sought people to have relationships with. He promised people that if they listened to Him and obeyed Him, they could have blessings and provisions. We see this with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many more.
Church culture on the earth has given truth in partiality, which has caused people to believe that an individual must simply believe that Jesus died on the cross and pray a prayer or be baptized, then that person will go to heaven. This thinking is a Christian-wide epidemic. Preachers, pastors, and church leaders have left out so many very important scriptures about receiving eternal life.
Jesus says this.
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 10:37-39
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds. “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Matthew 16:24-28
We must choose to pick up His desires and give up our own.
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.” Mark 10:29-31
Two parts I want to point out are what Jesus is saying here about family. You will get family, but it will not always be your blood family. You will receive His family. This is a hard concept for some to process; it was for me. I was very close to my family. My family was my world. I would go into depression when someone in my family was sinful. As I started learning the word of God and doing it, it started creating a great separation in my family. I have seen this over and over in the lives of people choosing to be disciples of Jesus. We must choose to overcome this longing desire to be with our family over choosing God's word.
Along with this, we have to process that we will get persecuted. It is promised; there is no getting around it unless you walk away from Him. We must choose to be okay with this if we want to receive eternal life. If we are not, we are deceiving ourselves. It comes down to believing that the Word of God is true or not.
The Greek word for persecutions is diógmos it means; 1375 diōgmós (from 1377 /diṓkō, "follow, pursue") – properly, pursuit (chase); persecution – literally, "the hunt to bring someone down like an animal," trying to suppress (punish) their convictions. See 1377 (diōkō).
1375 /diōgmós ("religious persecution") literally refers to those seeking to punish God's messengers with a vengeance – like a hunter trying to conquer (obliterate) someone as their "catch."
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. Luke 14:27-33
The word give up is the Greek word apotassō it means; to set apart, take leave of, to separate oneself, withdraw oneself from anyone, to take leave of, bid farewell to, to renounce, forsake.
The word possessions is the Greek word huparchō which means; to begin, make a beginning, to be in existence, be ready, be at hand. It also means expressing the continuance of an antecedent state or condition.
The word antecedent means ancestor, precursor, a thing or event that existed before or logically precedes another.
We are continuing to look at the cost of eternal life.
The person who wants to be Jesus' disciple has to give up all their antecedent/ancestor ways or old ways of doing things. This also makes me think of whatever ways we were trained before learning what the word of God says. We must give up those things.
This is not taught in mainstream Christian culture. It also isn't taught that if you believe but do not do what the word says, you are no different than the demons.
But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. James 2:18-26
So if you believe God sent His son to die on the cross but you do not do what He says, you are like the demons. Yet most people don't shudder when thinking of God.
Scripture says this in John 3:36
He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
John 3:36
What I have found is that a lot of people have experiences like signs and wonders with God or a spirit that makes them feel like they are close to God, but their lives do not reflect that of an obedient disciple of Jesus. Romans tells us that the goodness of God should lead a sinner to repentance, but what I have found with the false teaching today is that the goodness of God is taken instead to make people feel justified in their sin.
Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
Romans 2:4-11
Paul says this in Corinthians
Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
2 Corinthians 13:5
He wrote this to believers; we need to consider this for ourselves. I encourage you to search the scriptures because a lot of teachers do not share the whole truth of what is in the scriptures.
I will leave you with words from Paul to ponder.
Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:26-27