(Luke 14:25-33)<\/p>\n
At the grocery store, we pay much more than we did 20 years ago. We pay more at the gas pump. It costs more for a mechanic, plumber, doctor, et cetera. It costs more to be educated, have children, or to have enough savings to retire (as if that is possible for most of us).<\/p>\n
Now that apostasy has metastasized, and raging evil is pressing at the fence, it costs more to stand and be victorious. It costs more to be spiritually productive. The payment involves more praying and more abstaining from time-devouring and energy-wasting lures and distractions. One must make a greater investment in God\u2019s kingdom, and that requires more spiritually healthy choices<\/p>\n
ALERT: Attempting to get by with the same degree of commitment and prayer you invested even a decade ago is a serious mistake.<\/p>\n
However, professing Christians are less committed and are praying less. They are becoming more invested in entertainment than in their relationship with God. Your initial commitment to God is merely a down payment on what you owe Him.<\/p>\n
You owe full surrender. That is what He purchased when He redeemed us(1 Peter 1:17-19; 1 Corinthians 6:20) It involves many battles and purging to reach that point. No one who drinks liberally from the pool of world system entertainment or the broken cisterns of false Christianity has advanced toward full surrender.<\/p>\n
They refuse to pay the price, intercede, or stand when it costs them. Metaphorically speaking, they are trying to get the benefits of a million-dollar surrender from 2 cents worth of commitment.<\/p>\n
The fact is that no one is going to pay the price when they will not even count the cost. Please read, pray, and consider the scripture reference. (Luke 14:25-33)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Luke 14:25-33) At the grocery store, we pay much more than we did 20 years ago. We pay more at the gas pump. It costs more for a mechanic, plumber, doctor, et cetera. It costs more to be educated, have children, or to have enough savings to retire (as if that is possible for most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-sh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1762,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions\/1762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}