Redemption is our admission letter into the everlasting life. It is free. We did nothing to earn it. It was bequeathed to us by grace. Jesus paid the full price when He died on the cross and rose again on the third day.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV

All we need to do to be saved is believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross. This is the simple way every child of God became adopted. It is the general means of admission into this unending life in Christ Jesus.

Your salvation is not superior to mine. Even if you were saved through a lightning from heaven like Paul, it does not mean you are more saved than someone else who sincerely prayed the sinner’s prayer.

Meanwhile, what makes the difference in our Christian experience is not necessarily how we got saved but what we do after our salvation experience. It is not the quality of your salvation but the quality of the sacrifice and investment you are making into your Christian life. The problem with most struggling Christians is not that they were not properly saved; they are simply not paying the price. After salvation, they simply rested on their oars thinking salvation is all there is to the Christian life.

The Christian life is like getting admission into a University. The admission is just the entry criterion, there are classes to attend, tests and examinations to pass, and many assignments to be done. Your attendance to classes will often be taken. Your character will also be tested. Only then will you be awarded a degree. Moreover, if you have been in the faith, you definitely know that a lot of trials, tests and examinations will have to be passed. You will attend many classes. You have to be taught by the Lord through the Holy Spirit.

There are a lot Christians who are truants in God’s school, yet they wonder why they are spiritual dwarfs. You cannot harvest from the Spirit what you are not sowing into it. Salvation is free but what we become after we are saved is not automatic. There is a price for spiritual growth. This is the reason for the difference in our spiritual experience.

Friend, you won’t automatically know how to hear God if you don’t intentionally commit yourself to spiritual exercises that will facilitate it. No one automatically becomes a spiritual giant. No one is imparted with character; it is learnt, developed and acquired over the long haul of a life committed to obeying God. No one will fast for you. This is why it is useless for you to pay prophets to do it for you. The more you pay them, the shallower you will become in the spirit. No one will read the Bible and meditate for you. No one will wake up in the morning and meet God for you. You have to pay the price.

I have also learnt that spiritual age is not measured in earthly years. You are not older than I am in the spirit simply because you came to the faith five years before me. What determines your age in the spirit is whether you are paying the price. The more committed you are to paying the price, the faster you will grow.

Most of us are like Ananias and Saphirra. The scripture tells us that they withheld part of the price. It is found in Acts 5:1-3. Look at it,

But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? (KJV)

It is true this is related to the sale of a land but we can take a cue from the statement “kept back part of the price” and apply it to our spiritual life. Most of us are keeping back part of the price. It is not that we aren’t doing something but we are not doing enough. We are not going all the way. We are not fully committed. We are not doing it, as we ought. It is like a potential ‘A student’ ending up with ‘B’ because he is not doing what he ought to do to have an ‘A’. Our manifestation is far less than God’s vision for our lives.

We know within us the causes of the spiritual crises we are experiencing. We know that we are not as big in the secret the way we appear in the public. We are shallow yet people think we are deep. We are not praying again. We are not making time out anymore to study the word. We are no longer fasting. We don’t practice what we preach. We are not paying the full price.

We are pampering the flesh. Comfort is now a priority at the expense of our spiritual sanity. We feast instead of fasting. We have become addicted to our phones and internet. We don’t pray at night again. We no longer exercise faith for our healing and provision. We quietly practice the things we once condemned under the guise of maturity. What sort of maturity? We are keeping back part of the price.

It is dangerous when one has a wife like Sapphira who will help you cover your sins. Sapphira is that kind of wife who won’t challenge her husband after several days of skipping morning devotion. She won’t worry even if her husband no longer fast and pray in the secret. She doesn’t care though she knew her husband watches pornography. She would call it a means of turning him on so he can meet her.

How many wives are privy to their husband’s secret sins and they failed to cry out? Are you a Sapphira?

The end of partial or halfhearted commitment is obvious – death. Ananias and Sapphira died prematurely. It doesn’t mean we would die physically. It simply means we won’t attain God’s best for our lives. We will fall short of the mark. We won’t accomplish the reason for our creation. We will be shortchanged. We will have less than God’s best. We will be that ‘A student’ who ended up with a ‘B’ or ‘C’. When we meet God on the last day, there would be a great disparity between who we ought to be and what we became because we failed to pay the price.

This is a call to pay fully the price. It is a call to give our all on the altar. We must do what Barnabas did. He brought all to the altar (Acts 4:36-37). Giving our all is the secret to rapid spiritual growth and spiritual rest. It is the key to fulfilling and completing the work that God has given us to do.

I love the Message and the Amplified translation of Romans 12:1. It says,

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. (THE MESSAGE)

I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship. (AMPLIFIED)

This is what God is calling us to do; to make a decisive dedication of our lives to God. It is a call to intentionally subject every part of our body and every moment of our lives to God. This reminds me of a question asked in that popular hymn by Elisha Albright Hoffman (1839-1929), “Is Your All On The Altar Of Sacrifice Laid?” The hymn reads,

The refrain asks,

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
  Your heart, does the Spirit control?
You can only be blest and have peace and sweet rest,
    As you yield Him your body and soul.

True spiritual rest comes when our all on the altar is laid. We must pay the price.