Full Devotion

I was recently, as I said in my last post, leading worship @ a camp in michigan and one of the things that the speaker spoke to the kids about was about being fully devoted to Jesus Christ, goin all out, all in, giving our entire lives over for the advancement of the Kingdom.
Some of the verses he shared were Rev. 3:16, the one on being hot or cold, and Matthew 10:34-39 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn " 'man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw— a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." The speaker pointed out that a sword is something that splits things in half.
So Jesus is saying here that He wants such a devotion to Him that compared to our friends and family, it looks like we hate them, like in luke14:26 where He says we can't be His followers unless we hate our father, mother, brothers, and sisters. The kind of commitment Jesus requires to be one of His disciples is amazing to me and will unfortunately split family's apart. It's crazy but it inspires me. I don't think He would have the title "God" if He didn't require our love for Him to be so much more than our love for everyone else that in comparison it looks like hate. I actually wouldn't want to serve any other kind of god. I truly desire deep down inside to give my entire life to someone who wants me to give Him way more than I give anyone else.
And so the morning after that specific evenings session, the leaders in one of the meetings said that alot of the kids thought that they needed to reach a certain status in order to be fully devoted. They didn't think it could be now. They thought that they needed to be perfect, to have their sin under control first to be able to say that they were fully Jesus Christ's. This is a terrible misunderstanding that I think commonly confuses people all the time, not just these middle and high school kids.
One of my very most favorite verses is Romans 5:8 "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
There is no greater example of love.
Here is what I take away from this verse in Romans, something that gives me so much joy:

Full devotion to Jesus Christ is a life you can live right now because it has absolutely nothing to do with you not having your sin under control, but has everything to do with Jesus having your sin under control. Jesus has washed you white as snow, so it has everything to do with you accepting being already forgiven for everything you've ever done and will ever do. And like in Matthew 10 and luke 14 say, it means you do your best to love Jesus more than anything else. It means that Your heart beats fastest for Him. It means we recognize that it's about taking continual steps in His direction because it's an ongoing process. It means we can be fully His right now by the grace of God, not by our own efforts, not by what we do but by what He's done.
So for those not all in...Right now it's possible and He wants it all. So come on! cause He is jealous for our everything, and not because our loving anything else over Him threatens Him, but because it threatens us.

James 4:1-6 "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."