Give up and live

"No one enters eternal life without walking away from his sinful desires and picking up his cross and following Christ. A person’s very life depends on it."
- Andree Seu Peterson, WORLD Magazine blog

In this short, impactful article (read it here), Peterson asks "What would you do to live?" She opens with this example: if you have a severe peanut allergy and know that certain death awaits you after peanut consumption, you won't just ignore the consequences and eat them anyway, will you? You might think it's unfair that your body has imposed this limitation on your life, but you will refrain from eating peanut products if you wish to live.

She continues the article by reflecting on "the things God asks us to give up in order to enter the kingdom of heaven." We are all born with sinful tendencies that coax and fight and seduce us away from Christ. These sinful "allergies" are different for everyone but also fit the same mold: something we long for with all our heart that has deadly results. Peterson uses the example of same-sex attraction while clearly pointing out that those struggling with homosexual desires are not unique - "do we not all have to give up something to enter the kingdom of God?"

 It can be the desires of greed, desires of promiscuity, desires of addiction and over-indulgence, desires of fill-in-the-blank. "It's not fair that you have to struggle with this and be denied what you love!" the alluring voices tell us. "So go ahead and enjoy it!" But those seductive voices never include this vital piece of information: "Enjoy it...even though it's going to kill you!"

Every one of us has something we struggle to hold closer to our hearts than God. Peterson concludes the article by drawing from Luke 3, where person after person comes up to John the Baptist and asks "What must we do?" He tells them what they must give up, what lifestyle or earthly pleasure they must sacrifice in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven. But as seen in the story of the rich young ruler (Matthew 19 and Mark 10), not all are willing to give up and live.

What will we give up to live?