Sometimes, the best way to…

say it is to quote how someone else said it. John Ryle weighs the struggle of a Christian’s heart between this world’s offers and Jesus’ call to discipleship. The ongoing process of sanctification is simple, but not easy.

It is not open sin, or open unbelief, which robs Christ of his professing servants, so much as the love of the world, the fear of the world, the cares of the world, the business of the world, the money of the world, the pleasures of the world, and the desire to keep in touch with the world. This is the great rock on which thousands of young people are continually making shipwreck. They do not object to any article of the Christian faith. They do not deliberately choose evil and openly rebel against God. They hope somehow to get to heaven at last and they think it proper to have some religion. But they cannot give up their idol: they must have the world. And so after running well and bidding fair for heaven while boys and girls, they turn aside when they become men and women and go down the broad way which leads to destruction. The begin with Abraham and Moses and end with Demas and Lot’s wife.