Something to ponder. . .

“Will you take Him for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer? Though your Lord be a King, yet His kingdom is not of this world. He came not to minister to, but to minister. He came to serve and to suffer, and all those that will follow Him must suffer with Him. He did not come to divide lands and spoils and crowns and temporal dignities and honors among His disciples, but crosses and prisons and scourges and wants. You will join yourself to the Lord, but will you take up your lot with Him? You will live with Him and abide with Him, but do you know where He dwells, and what His entertainment is? Sometimes He has bread, and sometimes He is hungry; sometimes He has clothes, and sometimes is naked; sometimes He has a house, and sometimes He has none; sometimes He has friends, and sometimes He has none; He is sometimes used kindly, and sometimes used coarsely; sometimes it is Hosanna, and sometimes it is Crucify. Sometimes He is cried up as a King, sometimes cried out against as a devil. And as it is with the Master, so will it be with the scholar; as with the Lord, so with the disciple; where He is, you must be also. Can you say Where you go, I will go with You; where you feed, I will feed with You; where my Lord dwells, if in a tent, if in a cave, if in a dungeon, let me dwell with Him? Consider what you say, and be not overhasty”

(Richard Alleine, Heaven Opened, p.338-39).