Whatever the cost

The fate of the apostles...

Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia.

Mark expired at Alexandria, after having been cruelly dragged through the streets of that city.

Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece.

John was put into a cauldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterwards banished to Patmos.

Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward.

James the greater was beheaded at Jerusalem.

James the less was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller's club.

Philip was hanged up against a pillar at Heiropolis in Phrygia.

Bartholomew was flayed alive.

Andrew was bound to a cross, where he preached to his persecutors until he died.

Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies.

Jude was shot to death with arrows.

Matthias was first stoned, and then beheaded.

Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned to death by the Jews at Salonica.

Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was at length beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.

~Schumacher

...This makes me wonder, why do I (and all of us) then proceed to complain that the butter is barely too hard to spread, I don't have money to spend on that 10th sweater, it rains to much (or, in my case, it never rains enough), or my bed isn't very comfortable?  (By the way, my bed is comfortable, and I'm grateful.)  So often we don't realize our great abundance.  We are so hard to satisfy.  But when I read the fate of the apostles, or stories of other past and present persecutions, I feel really unworthy.  I have a lot of comfortable stuff, but why?  I am inspired by God's people who have gone before me and given up every comfort of the world to glorify God in every way possible.  May I, too, have the courage to stand up for Christ alone, whatever the cost.

"Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever."

"The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort...he has accepted God's estimate of his own life...in himself, nothing; in God, everything...he knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.  He rests perfectly content to allow God to place his own values."

~The Pursuit of God