Follow me completely

I give you beauty for ashes, joy for mourning and praise instead of despair (Isaiah 61:3). Therefore, finish counting the cost and complaining about what I am asking you to give up. You know that what you will gain from me vastly outweighs the ‘cost’. In your hesitating you waste time and begin to stagnate. If you want to be one that is forward moving, growing and maturing you must make your decision to follow me completely – and then do it.

Philippians 3:7-9 (NIV 2011)
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.