This is what's on my mind after my prayer time this morning:

I know Jesus as my Savior; what I really want is to know him as my Lord. I want to really give up all my desires and really seek and desire his will alone. This past weekend in California, the guest speaker Dirk Helmling, talked one evening about living a life that makes much of God. He made the point that the best way we can do that is just by getting to know God. And it's just natural that our lives would begin to change. But we must know God's word to know his heart, and then we can know his will.

This is what his word has been saying to me:

"I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead." - Philippians 3:10-11

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..." - Ephesians 1:18-20

It takes a dying to ourselves; a knowing and sharing in Christ's death within ourselves, to know and share that resurrection life that followed. It can be tough though. Do I really want to be crucified with Christ? Do you remember when Jesus told people to pick up their crosses? Why would anyone ever want to do that? Yet that is the exact message that Jesus gave them, knowing full well I'm sure how it made them feel. How uncomfortable the idea was. And then he lived it, as if to prove a point: GRACE ISN'T FREE. There is a price that must be paid, and Jesus paid it. What does that mean for us?

"Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us." - Deitrich Bonhoeffer

So I don't know what this all means for me yet. I don' know if God wants me to sell all my possessions and give them to the poor, though a big part of me feels like I'm kidding myself when I think he didn't mean that literally. But I know I'll never even get to that point if I can't leave my nets and follow him. If I can't cut my ties with this world and the things it promotes, to follow God's heart. I guess, if I can really accomplish that, a lot of the things I worry about won't matter. I just want to know the cost of having Jesus as my Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God; have mercy on us sinners.

- posted by Jonathan@ 12:08 PM