I Count it All Loss

This past Revival we heard a new song that Ty Sager and Bobby Blakey wrote...below are the lyrics:

"Called to count the cost of Christ
Am I willing to give up this life, give up this life
Called to consider it loss
Deny myself and take up my cross, take up my cross

And I, I'd rather have Jesus than anything else
And I, I'd rather know Him than anyone else

I'll leave it all, to follow You Christ
I'm losing this world, and gaining Your life
I'll call You Lord and obey what You say
I'll do it today Lord, I'll do it today

The sun came up today
You've given me another day
There's no reason I'll delay...I'll leave it all."

After hearing this song and reading the lyrics I am yet speechless again at the grace of our good and awesome God. I am astounded by the work of Christ on the cross and the very idea that He would chose to pour His favor upon a depraved creature like me. Here we face a question as addressed in this song and in Mark 8:34-38 where we read, "Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Many times however I think there is a skewed picture of the idea of picking up your cross and following Christ. There is this idea in the back of our minds that we are giving something to the Lord as if it is "painful". Many times a cost of something is negative. That is not the perspective that we should have in this area. The cost we are looking at is really not a cost at all. In fact it needs to be turned into the perspective of a privilege. The bridge in this song above puts it well, "I'd rather have Jesus than anything else". You see as Christians we are loosing from the world's perspective "everything". We are loosing the ability to live in the flesh, the choice to satisfy our carnal desires, and the want to live a life that pleases our own selves in turn for what the world would see as foolishness...an unseen prize of eternal glory with a resurrected King! But this is where the Holy Spirit's ability to unveil the hearts and minds of the saved comes into play. To the one who is repentant, there is a different view. In fact the view is flipped. The cost is no longer a cost, the race that is being run is not a race ran in vain in fact it is one that is moving towards a goal and a prize as Paul writes in Philippians 3. You see we count it as a loss...everything else is a loss compared to him. Therefore what is the cost? Earthly...temporal pleasures??

Do we as Christians live this way though? Have we counted everything lost to follow Christ. Do we really see following Christ and loosing our lives as a privilege, a joy, and everything we could ever want? Do we live this way? Have we left everything or are we still holding onto something in this world that seems better, something that we are unwilling to part with? The reality is that there is NOTHING better than Jesus Christ. No earthly pleasure, no momentary satisfaction, NOTHING AT ALL is going to satisfy like Jesus Christ. Will we lose things when we repent and trust in Him? Absolutely...but what are we losing is the question and are we really losing when we are gaining eternal life???