The benefits of salvation are great and wondrous and are and should be spoken of in glowing and rich terms. The privileges accrued through the cross ought to be of our greatest happiness.
Yet there is also a corresponding truth that since by the gospel God means to change our lives from fleshly and earthly-minded to spiritual and God-directed, there will also be a cost to following Him. One puritan said it well:
Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though, “the commandments of God be not grievous,” yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy. [John Tillotson; HT: CQOD]
Words of Grace 