I keep running into people or stories about people who want something but are unwilling to do what is necessary to get it. For example, people who want to be called "Christian" but who don't want to read the Bible or do anything it says. To me this is like sitting at home and saying that you want to go to a foreign country but you refuse to leave your house. Everything we want to do requires some effort (even changing channels on the TV) and is defined by some sequence of events. I'm always fascinated, for example, by people who do not want to be judged or live according to any standards of note but if you mention to them that they may not be going anywhere nice after death they are upset about this. I have very little respect for such a person. I respect a person more who shrugs their shoulders and says, "Fine, I don't believe in an afterlife anyway." But if you have a problem with going to hell then shouldn't you do something about that? Doesn't that "something" require making changes in your life? Imagine if I told a friend of mine who was complaining about not being able to go to a foreign country, "Well, if you just stay at home you will never get there." And their response was, "How dare you judge me!? You don't know anything about me! I don't need your judgment and I'll stay at home and get there just fine without your help, thank you very much." Well of course we have a word for such a response and it would be, "Lunacy." If you want to do something you find out what it takes and you do it. Christianity is no different. If you want to be a Christian, find out what it takes and do it. Jesus said it this way:
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.(Luke 14:28-32)
Count the cost, make the plan, and execute - but enough with the whining about judgment and having to do what the Bible says. That is part of it, and nothing you or I say or do is going to change that one bit.
