Are you bleeding?

Very few believers would deny the immeasurable pain and sacrifice Christ endured on the cross. Most will tell you of how brutally He was beaten and how the nails were driven through His hands. They will gladly tell you about the crown of thorns being driven into His skull. They will recount these stories in fairy-tale like fashion as if there is no more power in this sacrifice than in the Cinderella story.
While they acknowledge that the redemption of man required pain, sacrifice, and blood, they seem to think that the Christian life won’t require them to bleed. We look at the first century church and think, “Why did they have such results?” We want to know what differentiated them from us. I think the answer is not what we’d like it to be. The difference is they bled.

In the first century, being a part of a church cost you something. Every day, they lived with the reality it could at any moment cost them their lives. Ask the average American where their faith is costing them something and see what happens. I think the responses you hear will show you why we have the nothing results we have today.
Jesus bled and died for us, He bled from virtually every orifice on His body, but the average Christian today isn’t even sacrificing enough for a paper cut. If your faith isn’t costing you something, if you aren’t sacrificing something, then your comfort is your idol and you by your lack of action are condemning the world to remain in its lost condition.
I am not advocating working so hard you lose your family in the process or some other extremes, but if you aren’t giving the Kingdom as much time as you give the soccer club, then your priorities are seriously out of order. Let’s start bleeding just a little more, sacrificing just a little more comfort, and start making a bigger impact. Where are you bleeding today?