There is a cost

After I Peter 1:13-21

To believe, and to follow,

may impart a cost.

To deny what the word

says is right may require

a cost. To answer the call

to be holy means you are

different, you will be

different, and the difference

becomes sharper, more

distinctive, separating you

even more as each day

passes. You are being 

prepared for something

far better, far greater,

far more beautiful than 

what the world has to offer, 

what the world is able 

to offer.

 

Photograph by Random Thinking via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Mary’s Song – poem by Charles Causley at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin). 

 

Those Who Sing Songs in the Night – Tim Challies.

 

Advent I – poem by Andrew Peterson at The Rabbit Room. 

 

In Advent Stillness – poem by Jeffrey Essman at Society of Classical Poets. 

 

Silent Night – poem by Kelly Belmonte at Kell’s Scribbles.

Counting the Cost of Faith

Years ago, more than 40 to be precise, I was reading The Habit of Being, the collection of selected letters by Flannery O’Connor that had been recently published. Checking now, I see that my copy was from the third printing. And the book in various forms is still available on Amazon.

It’s a marvelous book, filled with so many great quotations and observations that they’re difficult to keep track of. One that I memorized, and sometimes used in Sunday School classes, was something she said about faith: “What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

It is the cross. That observation keeps coming to mind over and over as I read William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity by Kevin Belmonte. Three chapters in particular demonstrate the truth of O’Connor’s statement – the three that describe the “two great objects” Wilberforce said God had set before him once he had experienced the “great change’ and became a believer.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Painting: William Wilberforce by Karl Anton Hickel, about 1794.