Salvation is a human impossibility. None can earn salvation by personal effort. Yet salvation is a free gift from heaven, fully possible for God.

When talking about salvation we must avoid two extremes: 1. Saying that salvation is a path free from difficulties; 2. Saying that the way of salvation is without joy and happiness. Salvation is not an easy process; it has a cost for us. We cannot live for this world and at the same time live a Christian life. Christ was very clear: “You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world” John 16:33 (Contemporary English Version).

In Matthew 7, Christ presented two ways before humanity: the narrow way, which takes us to heaven, and the broad way, which takes us to eternal perdition. He bids us: “Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it” (verses 13, 14). (Holman Bible).

In Luke 14:25–33, Christ presents, in a kind of shocking way, the cost of salvation, the cost of following Him. He says: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (verses 26, 27, Holman Bible).

Is Christ saying that we literally need to hateour family so that we can be His disciples? In 1 Timothy 5:8, we read that “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” In reality, the true Christian believer should be the best, most loving member of the family.

What Christ is revealing in His intentionally shocking statement is that our surrender to Him must be the absolute priority in our life, above earthly family tie—and even above our own life.

He said also: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:24, 25).

When we surrender our life to Christ, we need to count the cost. We shouldn’t expect an easy life, free from duties and responsibilities. Our sinful desires need to be denied. God gives His children a cross to destroy pride, selfishness, covetousness, sinful pleasures, perverted appetites and corrupt passions.

Complete surrender and submission from our part to the Lord involves complete separation from sin and from wrong habits and practices. The apostle urges us to “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:17, 18).

“Paul had a keen sense of the conflict which every soul must wage with the agencies of evil that are continually seeking to deceive and ensnare, and he had worked untiringly to strengthen and confirm those who were young in the faith. He had entreated them to make an entire surrender to God; for he knew that when the soul fails to make this surrender, then sin is not forsaken, the appetites and passions still strive for the mastery, and temptations confuse the conscience.

“The surrender must be complete. Every weak, doubting, struggling soul who yields fully to the Lord is placed in direct touch with agencies that enable him to overcome. Heaven is near to him, and he has the support and help of angels of mercy in every time of trial and need.”1

As we thus surrender, “the refining influence of the grace of God changes the natural disposition of man. Heaven would not be desirable to the carnal-minded; their natural, unsanctified hearts would feel no attraction toward that pure and holy place, and if it were possible for them to enter, they would find there nothing congenial. The propensities that control the natural heart must be subdued by the grace of Christ before fallen man is fitted to enter heaven and enjoy the society of the pure, holy angels. When man dies to sin and is quickened to new life in Christ, divine love fills his heart; his understanding is sanctified; he drinks from an inexhaustible fountain of joy and knowledge, and the light of an eternal day shines upon his path, for with him continually is the Light of life.”2