I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Luke 13:5

Take an apple, cut it open, and put it on the counter.  Leave it there, say, for a week, or a month, and you will notice something. The apple is no longer the apple you left it as, but it is now destroyed.  Further, there is no repairing that apple to it’s original golden deliciousness.  It is now, if you leave it long enough, brown slime, and food for the bees.

This world, like that apple, is broken like that apple.  And, in fact, it was God that broke it for His own justice at the beginning, when the man fell.

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[B]ut he who is doing the truth doth come to the light, that his works may be manifested, that in God they are having been wrought.

John 3:21 YLT

The Kingdom and the earth cannot be compared.  They are so drastically different from each other, that Jesus says the only way to really live “there” is to not live “here”.  This obviously does not have to be fully understood to be lived, but for those who look to understand and see what Jesus was saying, in order to live by it, it becomes evident.

He who begins to build a tower must first calculate the cost, lest he run out half way through (Luke 14:28).  Jesus said that unless you hate your former life (Luke 14:26), every part, including family ties and who you used to be, you cannot be His disciple.  Luke 14:33 goes a long ways and says that unless you give up everything you have, you cannot be His disciple.

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When we look at the Gospel, we see good news.

Despite the cost, despite the hardships, despite the pain.  Despite anything.

When we look at the life of absolute surrender, the life of absolute submission, and absolute loss of this life, it is only a most extraordinary gospel that can still be good news in the wake of this.

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Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Matthew 8:20

What does it take to dissuade someone from pursuit?  A little hardship, a little persecution?  Lack of a comfortable home?

Jesus said,

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

What you lose is only temporary, what you gain is worth it.  It is Good News.

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