George Barna says that the Bible is “clear in telling us that God did not send Jesus to die so that we might be comfortable and complacent, but so that we might die to self, pick up our cross, and follow the way of the Master.”

One visit to a “Christian” bookstore may convince you otherwise, however. The shelves contain book after book that are nothing less than self-help and self-promotion with a “Christian” flavor. You are hard-pressed to find the titles about sacrifice, surrender, a theology of suffering and denial of self – all principle parts of the life and teaching of Christ – but you can easily find an abundance of how to feel better about yourself, look better, be thinner and make your wallet thicker, often with plenty of distortions of the Word to support self-centered theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as “grace without price, grace without cost.” He said that “cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross,” and thus “grace without Jesus Christ.” Bonheoffer said, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.”

I rarely hear some of the scriptures that were so fundamental to the building of my theology and relationship with Jesus:

Galatians 2:20  “With Christ I have been co-crucified, and I live no more …”

Luke 14:26-27  “… If any man comes after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me, or he cannot be My disciple.”

Philippians 2:1-5  “…Consider the needs of others are more important than your own…”

Luke 17:7-10  “… In the same way, when you obey Me you should say, ‘We are unworthy slaves who have simply done our duty.’”

Philippians 4:14  “…Whatever things we gain to me, those I have counted as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them to be rubbish that I might gain Christ…”

Those who cherish and live these scriptures are the ones who find a special intimacy with Christ that leads to the favor of God.

God is looking for a people who pray the prayer of A.Z. Tozer:

“O God, be exalted over my possessions. Be exalted over my friendships. Be exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please You even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten. Rise, O Lord, into Your proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health, even life itself. Let me decrease that You may increase.”

This is the prayer of someone whom God can use to change the world!