This is the tenth installment in a series of posts from Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots(Hardcopy/Kindle). J. C. Ryle’s classic book on Holiness.
Before Ryle gives 7 ways for counting the cost rightly he clarifies what he is not trying to do:
Sorry indeed should I be if I did not say something on this branch of my subject. I have no wish to discourage any one, or to keep any one back from Christ’s service. It is my hearts desire to encourage every one to go forward and take up the cross. Let us ‘count the cost’ by all means, and count it carefully. But let us remember, that if we count rightly, and look on all sides, there is nothing that need make us afraid.
1. Count up and compare, for one thing, the profit and the loss, if you are a true-hearted and holy Christian (Mark 8:36).
2. Count up and compare, for another thing, the praise and the blame, if you are a true-hearted and holy Christian (Matthew 5:11-12).
3. Count up and compare, for another thing, the friends and the enemies, if you are a true-hearted and holy Christian (Luke 12:5).
4. Count up and compare, for another thing, the life that now is and the life to come, if you are a true-hearted and holy Christian (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
5. Count up and compare, for another thing, the pleasures of sin and the happiness of God’s service, if you are a true-hearted and holy Christian (Job 20:5; Ecclesiastes 7:6; John 14:27).
6. Count up and compare, for another thing, the trouble that true Christianity entails, and the troubles that are in store for the wicked beyond the grave. Grant for a moment that Bible-reading, and praying,a nd repenting, and believing, and holy living, require pains and self-denial. It is all nothing compared to threat ‘wrath to come’ which is stored up for the impenitent and unbelieving (Luke 16:25).
7. Count up and compare, in the last place, the number of those who turn from sin and the world and serve Christ, and the number of those who forsake Christ and return to the world (Proverbs 4:19; 13:15; 4:8).
