Everything Comes with A Price

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions, yet? Well, whatever you have resolved to do or change or somehow improve about yourself, it will come with a price. Whether you want to lose weight, exercise more, eat more healthy, get out of debt, or to pray and read your Bible more, it will cost you something.  In some way, you will have to make a sacrifice of time, energy, money, watching less TV, spending less time or money on certain hobbies, etc.

Everything Comes With A Price!

My children have teenage cousins visiting from out of state. Last night one of them spent the night with my three children, along with additional cousins and friends. I had a house full of kids. Those kids had a homecooked country meal for dinner. Homemade chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, buttered rolls, chicken salad, and corn and string beans that came from my parent's garden. For dessert...chocolate chip cookies my mom made from scratch the day before. Quite a spread, right? Cooking the dinner alone took over an hour, not to mention clean up time afterwards, (and that doesn't count the time my Mom spent making the cookies.) But it was worth it to fill those kids up, right?  Well, by 10 pm they were starving again and ate a small fortune in snacks and tore up my clean kitchen. Everything comes with a price.

If you've ever decided to lose weight, get in shape or eat healthy, you know it comes with a price. Many people have recently asked me how I have lost so much weight. I just smile and say "blood, sweat, and tears".  They want to know what program I am on or what secret I have discovered. There isn't one. Its hard work. That's the price you have to pay. Even my friends that have lost weight through weight loss surgery have found that it isn't easy. They had to pay the price through the cost, pain, recovery time, and a complete lifestyle change. Everything comes with a price.

Eating healthy costs more. Cooking tacos, spaghetti, and fried bologna sandwiches is cheap. Cooking grilled chicken and buying fresh fruit and vegetables costs more. Its the price you pay to eat healthy. Last June, I bought a juicer. Fresh juice is delicious, but it is more expensive, more time consuming, and creates more of a mess than buying it in the carton. That's the price you pay! My nephew spent the night during the Christmas break for a sleepover with my kids. After I went to bed, he and my oldest two kids went into the kitchen and got out the juicer and "juiced" about $40 worth of fruit. When I got up the next morning, there was pulp and peels everywhere and juice running down the kitchen counter and cabinets. When I went to bed the previous night, my kitchen had been clean...now it looked like a fruit cocktail had exploded.  I joked with my sister about it a few days later. She said her son had so much fun he wants them to buy a juicer now. He went on and on about how good it is to mix fresh apple juice with fresh orange juice and how you can add carrots in there, too. Well, I guess, some teenagers spend then night with their friends and sneak into the parent's stash late at night and experiment with alcohol or drugs. When they spend the night at my house, they sneak into the kitchen late at night and experiment with juice!  Want your kids to eat more fruit? Buy a juicer. Jack LaLane's Power Juicer is $99 at Wal Mart. Everything comes with a price!

I've told my children and their friends they can call me at any time they need me and I will be there for them. Guess what? That comes with a price. I was eating an Outback one night with a special friend. Two of my daughter's friends called my cell phone. "Ms. Leigh-Ann, are you at Outback? We are at the movie theatre and my car won't start.  Will you come get us?" So, I did, and two teenage girls joined me and my friend for dinner at Outback and a movie afterwards. Everything comes with a price!

When you are in ministry, it comes with a price. When you offer to help people, it comes with a price. Growing spiritually,  taking a closer walk with God, becoming more Christ-like, it all comes with a price. If you help others, you may pay the price of being taken advantage of or being criticized. Your efforts to help others may be misconstrued or twisted and used against you. SO, you should just worry about yourself and let others fend for themselves, right? NO! Look, I've learned that people are going to talk about you anyway. Don't let it keep you from doing good. If the worst thing that people can say about you is that you did something good for somebody, then do what's right and forget about it! Let's be honest...if people want to criticize you, they will. They will just make something up, whether its true or not. Stop worrying about them and do what you know to do.

Giving, working, serving, and blessing others does come with a price. However, the Bible says that if we know to do good, and do not do it...then that's a sin! If you know of a way to bless someone, then do it. You may pay the price with criticism or false accusations. You may help someone and have your motives questioned. You may help someone and then they turn around and ask for more! (I've also learned that people have a lot of nerve!) Don't let that stop you. In the Bible, we are encouraged to go above and beyond. If someone asks us to go one mile with them, we should go two. The Bible also says that someone that gives to the poor is lending to the Lord! If you give as little as a cup of water, even in the name of one of Jesus' followers, you will be blessed.

In the Bible, a woman was even criticized for blessing Jesus, because they thought the perfume she anointed him with cost too much! (I guess they were suggesting that she wasted it...ON JESUS?) 

Matthew 26:6-13 says Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper,  a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it upon His head as He reclined at the table.  But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, “Why this waste?  For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me.  For the poor you have with you always; but you do not always have Me. For when she poured this perfume upon My body, she did it to prepare Me for burial. Truly I say to you, wherever this Gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of in memory of her.” (NASB) 



Today, find a way to bless someone or to make a change towards your own spiritual growth and just don't worry about the cost. Everything comes with a price. But... anything you do for God will have a heavenly reward that is even greater!


Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”