Homeless and destitute, I wandered through the war-torn region, aware of the danger that I was in. Every few minutes, I would hear another blast, sometimes accompanied by screaming or wailing. I knew that any moment could be my last. I wore a huge backpack, filled with all of my belongings. I had a few articles of clothing, a half-eaten and likely spoiled sandwich which I had recently found on the ground and was saving for this evening, an old soda bottle that I kept refilling with whatever water I could find, and various other treasures, ranging from plastic bags to shell casings to chunks of brick from blown-apart buildings that I wanted to remember. Sitting on top of my backpack was Winston, a vulture who somewhere along the line strangely decided that I was worth hanging out with between meals.
One day I heard a plane coming toward me, and I wondered if I was about to die. Yet instead of the dreaded attack, this plane landed nearby and the pilot got out and ran toward me! “I can get you to safety!” the pilot said.
“But I don’t have anything to offer you,” I said to the pilot.
“Don’t worry about that – just get in!” he replied.
I started toward the plane.
“Just one thing,” he said. “I can only take you. You have to leave that backpack and that bird behind.”
Looking back, I realize that nothing in that bag really mattered, and Winston was probably only hanging around because he figured that I would soon become his feast. Yet in that moment, I could not give up my things. Everything that I cared about was inside that backpack, and my only friend was sitting on top of it.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“Sir, don’t you realize that I risked my life in coming here, and that you will die if you do not go with me?”, he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “but I should be ready to go shortly. Just give me a week or two to go through my things and to say goodbye to Winston.”
He had every right to leave me there, and from what I understand, he has in the past left other people behind. Yet this time, he did something which to me seemed incredibly cruel; but what he did was actually incredibly merciful. He yanked the backpack off of my back and threw it over the cliff. Winston flew away, and all of my belongings were gone.
“Time to go,” he said sternly yet lovingly as he looked deeply into my eyes.
We boarded the plane and began our journey to safety. As I mourned my lost sandwich, he offered me a much better sandwich that he had set aside for me. When I asked him about my lost clothing, he allowed me to open his suitcase and pick out some of his own clothes to wear. I started to look just like him! Though I had begun the journey pleading with him to return for Winston, my only friend, I began realizing that my pilot was a better friend than Winston ever could have been.
While fictional in its details, that story actually bears a striking resemblance to my true story. We will return to that later; but first, here is the question that I want to talk about today: “Do I need to give (insert anything and everything here) up, to be saved?” The answer to this question is “probably.”
No matter what it may be, you need to be willing to give it to God. You cannot have anything in your life that is more important to you than God. Just about everyone has probably heard of the ten commandments. If I were to ask you to name these commandments, you would probably come up with a few commandments such as “don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery,” and perhaps a few more. Yet the very first commandment, in Exodus 20, verse 3, is “You shall have no other gods before Me.” When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was, He said in Mark 12:29 and 30, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” If anything in your life is more important to you than God, you need to give that to Him. If you do not love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, then take whatever you do love with all of these, and give it to God. Whether that may be sin or even something good and pure – if it is more important to you than God is, give it to Him. He may throw it over a cliff, or He may hand it right back to you.
But do you want to know what else you will give up? You will give up your burdens, your shame, your misery, and your fear. Going back to the story in the beginning, I lost my backpack, representing my burden. The random debris in my backpack served only to remind me of the destruction all around me and to keep me weighed down. In that backpack I had the clothing of a homeless person, representing my shame. I had a dirty water bottle and a spoiled sandwich which, while meeting my needs to a degree, would have left me feeling miserable. I left behind the fear which accompanied a nearly certain death. While I did leave behind a friendship, that friendship would have eventually ended in my destruction.
Jesus said in Luke 14:27 and 28 “And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?” If you are going to follow Jesus, there will be a cost. You may leave behind some things that you may be afraid to let go of. You may leave behind some things that you currently enjoy, currently love, and currently feel that you need in your life. Yet just as I found out in the story that everything was better after my backpack was gone and my items were replaced with better items, so I have found that my losses in following Jesus have been replaced by better things. I do not want to go back to the things which I formerly carried around with me.
If you follow Jesus, you will give things up. I have heard well-meaning people say to “try Jesus.” When I think of “trying Jesus,” my mind goes to a similar scenario: “try amputation.” Just as you cannot try amputation without leaving something behind, you cannot “try Jesus” without giving up your old life.
Count the cost. Is it worth giving everything up to gain Jesus – to gain salvation and a right relationship with God? I can tell you that it is. Jesus said in Matthew 16:26, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” We will take a look shortly at what you gain. What you gain is worth so much more than what you ever could give up!
There is still more that I would like to discuss, including whether everything we give to God is actually gone, some specifics about what we need to give up, and the results of being unwilling to give everything to God. We will look at these additional areas next time, and after that, we will look into all that we gain from that relationship with God!
Next Posts: What do I Need to Give Up? (Counting Cost Part 2) Eternal Life (Counting Cost Part 3)