James & Tess Arendt
THE CHEAPEST THING IS NOT ALWAYS THE BEST THING. Bargains frequently aren't worth it and may turn out to be a bigger gyp than the higher-priced real thing. You may even get less than what you paid for in buying a bargain. You may have paid less for it but gotten very much less than if you'd paid a little more and gotten quality! It's like my Mother used to say about eating places: Why go to the "Sign of the Greasy Spoon" and the "Stinky Kitchen" and get cheap junky food that you're not even sure is clean to save a quarter or 50 cents?--Your life is worth more than that!
The same goes for anything--clothing, jewelry, food, trailers, cars, whatever. The cheapest is not necessarily the best buy! You may not get your money's worth. The cheapest stuff may be half-price, but one-fourth value, or maybe even worse! That's true of almost everything in life: The lowest-priced thing is not necessarily the cheapest.--It may cost you more in the long run!
IT REMINDS ME OF WHAT MY MOTHER USED TO SAY ABOUT BARGAIN COUNTER RELIGION: IT DOESN'T COST YOU ANYTHING. David said, "I will not give unto the Lord of that which hath cost me nothing." (2Sam.24:24) His religion had to cost him something, it had to be worth something.
MOST CHURCHES THAT I KNOW OF ARE GYP JOINTS where they're claiming to sell the people valuable goods, worth something that's going to get'm to Heaven, when actually it's a gyp! But the people are willing to buy it because it doesn't cost them very much, it doesn't require much sacrifice!
They can go and selfishly live for themselves and never witness, never help others, never help the missionaries, never really give, never really do anything for the Lord, totally selfish, living completely for themselves and for Mammon and giving virtually 99% of their time to their own selfish pursuits and maybe giving less than 1% of their time to the Lord!
They figure, "That's pretty cheap religion, doesn't cost me very much. Doesn't cost much of my time, I don't have to pay much money for it, and yet it looks grand and great!" They go to a pretty building and they have pretty services, and they think they're getting a bargain because it costs them so little!
AND OF COURSE THE WORST GYP IS BARGAIN SALVATION THAT DOESN'T SAVE YOU and you wind up in Hell when you thought you'd paid your way to Heaven, like a lot of these religionists.--Whether they pay with money or penance or church-going or whatever.
It cost a priceless gift to get saved, and that was Jesus and His Blood, and receiving Him for your salvation is the only thing that's going to save you. That's the highest-priced gift anybody could ever receive, the highest cost anybody could pay for your salvation, and only Jesus could do it. Anything less is bargain counter religion that won't save you, and is not even worth what you pay for it!
No matter how much you sacrifice and pay for it by your own works, it's cheap, it's too cheap, because you won't get the real thing, and you'll wind up in Hell after all your hard work and all your sacrifice and all the cheap price you paid for it. It still wasn't enough, for only Jesus could pay for it, because the price was too high for you.--You could never afford it.
It applies to everything.--No matter what field of life, don't trust bargains. They may not even be worth what you pay for them, especially if they're worth nothing, like bargain counter salvation, which isn't salvation at all!
A LOT OF BACKSLIDERS FIGURE, "Why should I pay so much for my religion and my salvation and to go to Heaven and have to give up my whole life and my home and forsake-all for Jesus and live like a foreigner and a stranger in a strange land and forsake all and give everything I've got?
"Why should I pay such a big price for my religion when I can go home and have a nice comfortable job, comfortable home, fancy appliances, new car, and live comfortably and go to church an hour a week? I'm getting by cheap! It's costing me very little and I'm reputable in the eyes of the community. Easy believism, easy religion!"
But they're going to find out when they get to Heaven, if they get there at all, that it was pretty costly!--Very costly! Because they're going to wind up in everlasting shame and contempt--forever! That's a Hell of a long time and that's a pretty big price to pay for such cheap religion! (Dan.12:2)
We give everything we've got but we're going to find out that that was really a pretty cheap price to pay for the reward we're going to get! So we're the ones who are actually getting the bargain! By giving our all we're going to get everything. They're giving almost nothing and that's just what they're going to get! So if you ask me, the price they're paying is more than what we're paying, because they're going to get so little in return!
They can be thankful if they make it at all, even get in! And if they do, they're going to suffer everlasting shame and contempt--no crown for their labours, no stars in their crown for souls, nothing! Because they sent up nothing. And that's a pretty big price to pay, the loss of your reward, because of your refusal to pay the price here.
They're losing so much, they can't even imagine how much they're losing by their cheap religion that doesn't cost them very much. Well, they're going to find out that they're getting just what they paid for, which wasn't very much.
TIME WASTED IS GONE FOREVER, and though it was easy to waste, it can be pretty expensive. Time well-spent may have cost a lot in effort and strength and sacrifice and love and whatever, but when we see what our reward is going to be even here and now as well as hereafter, it's a bargain.
We may find out that a lot of the stuff we did and the time we wasted was no bargain. We paid several times what it was actually worth for that pleasure or that time wasted, it was pretty expensive. And this religion some of our backsliders have, when they find out how much they're losing by this easy religion, they're going to find out it was pretty expensive religion!
Whereas the people like you and me for whom it has cost everything, when we see what we're going to get in return, are going to figure, "Wow, what a bargain! We gave everything, but what we're getting in return is worth so much more than everything we could possibly give!" That's what I call a bargain!--When you get back a whole lot more than you paid for! Amen?
If you pay $1000 for something and it's only worth $100, that's no bargain. But if you pay $10,000 and it's worth $100,000, that's a bargain! It cost you more but it's worth a Heaven of a lot more! PG! TYL! So even if a thing didn't cost you very much, if by buying it you're losing even more than it cost you, it's far more expensive than the thing that cost you everything, but is going to pay you even more.--What are YOU buying?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
My name is James Arendt. I was raised in the Hegewisch neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, served in the USAF from 1970 to 1974, and became a full-time missionary for Christ living 40 years in Japan, 3.5 years in Russia, and a few months in other countries such as Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, South Korea, Taiwan and mainland China where I also served the King of Kings, Jesus, as an Ambassador for His Kingdom. My full bio.
If you like this website, you can show your appreciation by sending me a gift toward my support. My wife Tess and I moved from the island of Guam USA in June 2023 to the city of Allen in the province of Northern Samar, one of the poorer provinces in the Philippines. My only work is maintaining my websites, Deep Truths, and James Japan which costs me $300 per year now. And Tess is ministering to the local people giving them regular Bible Studies in three groups, children, teenagers and adults.
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