Most of us admire people who commit their lives to a cause higher than themselves. There's a fearlessness, a singularity, a freedom to someone who's all in. They have nothing to lose. For, whatever they might have had to lose, was already freely and happily surrendered. Such men and women are dangerous.

The Bible considers 'laying down one's life for another' to be the highest expression of love. Jesus actually calls for nothing less from us. If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. The call to us is to exchange our self-exalting soul/life for His new, everlasting life.

Jesus then gives us a down payment of the new life in that never-ending Kingdom, right here and now. Are the favors and gifts of God that you enjoy this moment enough to cause you to relinquish the reigns of your life in this world to follow him? Are we aware of what Jesus' down payment of the Spirit consists? How much of His Kingdom is immediately available to us? Is our present experience of that life in the Holy Spirit precious enough for us to desire 10,000 pounds more of the same?

If this new life we're living in this world has failed to generate in us sufficient passion, or even interest, toward giving our whole lives in service to Christ, then why would we want a boundless increase of the same in the next?

God, in Christ, has nothing other to give us than Himself. The earnest/down payment of the Spirit is a measure of His Glory and Presence. For most Christians, the scope of our knowledge and experience of the foretaste of our inheritance is so limited (in breadth of understanding of its mysteries, powers, freedoms and magnificence), there is little enticement for heaven beyond the absence of pain and tears.

We ought at least to explore and apprehend the gift given. We may then be infatuated and allured and love struck, today! - and awash with anticipation for the exhilarating union at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Sadly, most of us barely look into the eyes of our Betrothed, who left heaven to woo us. And, living so distant from such encounters, we determine not to go too far.