Lose Everything
There are certain passages in the Bible that are referred to as "hard sayings" of Jesus. But really, everything Jesus said was a hard saying. Because whenever Jesus spoke, He was challenging our mindset. He was demanding a total INVERSION of our entire value structure every time He spoke. The things that God esteems as precious, man sees as foolishness, and the things that man eagerly seeks after, God sees as nothing. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." He said "you must be born again."
Here is a saying that Jesus's own followers said was a "hard saying..." John 6:53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." Jesus is saying that He is to become our life and our food and our drink. Remember that time His disciples realized He didn't have any food with him, and He told them "My meat is to do the will of Him Who sent me." Remember also when Jesus said "blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Col 3:4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. 1 Jn 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
See how Jesus calls us to abandon everything to follow Him:
Luke 9:23-26
Luke 9:57-62
Luke 14:25-32
Matt 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Phil 2, 3 (Modern English Version: who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.)
(Notice 3:18 "...for Whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ.") If Paul sees his former life, following the law to the letter, as rubbish, how much more should we see our former lives living in sin as rubbish?
What is Paul pressing onward for? Paul is not trying to "earn" his salvation. He is already saved, and he knows it and teaches it--salvation by grace through faith. What Paul is trying to do, though, is literally become transformed into the very image of Christ. And he's teaching us to do the same.
Here's another hard saying of Jesus: Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
How is that possible? "With man, these things are impossible, but with God all things are possible." But Peter knew, even before he received the Holy Spirit, that when God tells you to do something, He also empowers you to do it. That's why he asked Jesus to tell him to walk on water in order to make sure it was actually Jesus. And Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water out of obedience.
This is really no different from the first time we came to God or the first time we received the Holy Spirit. We took Him at His word and trusted Him with our life, after we finally realized that He is more trustworthy than our own selves. We did not find Him until we sought Him with our whole heart. And now we should continue seeking Him with our whole heart and trusting Him moment by moment, realizing that He continually walks with us and empowers us and guides us and arranges our circumstances and will never leave us nor forsake us.
Col 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.