Everything has a cost

The Price of Everything

There is a time and a place for everything. Perhaps the old saying should have added that there is a price too – a price in either time, or effort, or money.

Time is an old adversary, waiting for no man, ticking away inexorably. There is no way to stop time – unless you are God. There is no slow motion replay of time either. You cannot slow it down nor can you speed it up. Every second passes – well – a second at a time.

Effort is easy when we are young because we are full of energy and energy equals effort. Yet the effort of doing everything increases with age. It matters not one jot if you are a youthful 70-something or a slower 50-something. Effort is the energy we expend in order to accomplish a certain task.

Money is that something we can earn by expending energy in our work. It is also one of the facilitators of life.

There are other prices we sometimes pay too – like psychologically, emotionally, or physically. Sometimes getting our minds round a task is 50% of the energy required to actually perform it. It’s half the battle. It’s the psychological price we pay.

Emotions are a hard taskmaster. They rob us of time, effort, and money, often in some quantity. Who has not been torn between “a rock and a hard place”? Who has not shared the angst of teenagers trying to find their boundaries?

The price of physical effort can be very high too. So you can see from this very brief list, there is a price to pay for everything.

My question is this – Are you prepared to pay the price of revival? Of having all your plans and programs shredded; of losing some of your congregation but gaining others; of seeing your church and personal worlds turned upside down by a Holy Spirit given free rein to do as He wants to do among you?

Some friends of ours recently heard that their granddaughter and great grandson were stranded over 1000 miles away. The little lad had got chicken pox and was not allowed near a plane. The tour company she was with simply threw them out of their hotel and deserted her with no money and nowhere to stay. Fortunately some wonderful local Christians drove over and took them in. Our friends, no longer spring chickens, set off by car to drive half way across Europe and back to rescue them. That is love. That is paying the price.

Is it the sort of price you are prepared to pay for God to move in your church? Think hard before you answer because it IS the price of revival – but it’s worth it.