If there were 1,000 ways to God we would want 1,001.

Do you believe that Jesus is worth abandoning everything for? Do you believe him enough to obey him and to follow him wherever he leads, even when the crowds in our culture - maybe even our churches - turn the other way?

In our evil we rebel against God. We take the law of God, written in his Word and on our hearts, and we disobey it.

If you claim to be a follower of Christ, I encourage you to consider your present commitment to a local church.

This extremely shocking and utterly revolutionary call is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: we are not called to simply believe certain points or observe certain practices, but ultimately to cling to the person of Christ as life itself.

Real success is found in radical sacrifice. Ultimate satisfaction is found not in making much of ourselves but in making much of God. The purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live. Meaning is found in community, not individualism; joy is found in generosity, not materialism; and truth is found in Christ, not universalism. Ultimately, Jesus is a reward worth risking everything to know, experience, and enjoy.

Our possessions can be deadly. They can be subtly deadly.