Salvation is FREE, but it will cost you Everything

 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. Luke 13:24

 Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14

Come forward, one and all, come to the altar and receive Jesus into your hearts. Just repeat after me this prayer and believe it in your heart that Jesus died and rose again for you, and you'll be saved eternally and go to heaven when you die! Nothing can make you lose your salvation. 

Easy right? I've heard altar calls like this all my life. If they don't call people to the altar, the other tactic is to have everyone close their eyes and the person who wants to "repeat" the prayer just slips his or her hand in the air. I mean, let's start off teaching them to be ashamed of the Gospel, right?

I'm not saying that some people who answer an altar call and some people who embarrassingly slip their hand in the air don't get truly saved. What I'm saying is, and truly believe, that most don't. This is one reason I absolutely disagree vehemently with repeating a prayer in order to get saved. Those who actually do get saved, I wonder how long will they remain saved when they are being taught that God requires nothing else from them. This flies flat into the whole of Scripture, but people actually have to read the Bible to discover that. 

Yes, salvation through Jesus Christ is FREE. Halleluiah!  But Scripture never ever says that the true Christian life is easy. It never says that you can continue living your life for you and do what you want. It never says you will have your best life now on Earth. In fact "STRIVE" in the first verse listed above is the Greek word

agōnizomai - This is a VERB and it means to fight, to struggle with difficulties and dangers, compete, labor fervently. 

Whoops there's that nasty word labor which could mean "works". Yikes. But MaryLu, that's a works-based salvation and that's blasphemous! Yet I would answer that it's right there in the Bible. STRIVE.  I even recently heard a popular pastor with close to 800,000 subs on You tube say that Repent doesn't mean turn from your sins. Rather it means change your mind. Wow. Change your mind about what? 

In the verse from Matthew above, it says that even after you get through this narrow gate, the way is difficult that leads to life.  The Early Apostles understood this.  

Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. Acts 14:22

What? Tribulation? I didn't sign up for this!  Maybe your pastor forgot to tell you to count the cost of being a true disciple of Jesus.

And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it Luke 14:27-28 .....So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. v33

It will cost you everything. 

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Matthew 25:11-12

There's nothing that upsets me more than to see professing Christians treat their salvation as if it were a Get out of Jail Free card they stuff in their back pocket and forget. Their lives and their conversations look no different than the heathen all around them. I know I harp on this often, but we are close to going home and many many Christians are going to be left behind and will most likely either give in and take the Mark of the Beast or they will get their heads chopped off. 

If they can't live for Jesus now, they most likely won't have the strength to live for Him when their lives are at stake. 

The Christian life is a life of dedication, sacrifice, discipline, making difficult choices, doing the hard thing, and being willing to be hated and made a fool for Jesus

This week, I must approach some people whom I dearly love and tell them the truth. I don't expect it to go well. But because of my love for them, I must. Love makes the hard choice. It doesn't consider its own reputation or happiness. (Pray for me. I'm not good at this!) 

Jesus was the perfect example of this to us all.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  Philippians 2:5-8