Romans 8:16-18

16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

The one part I might not like about this passage is "if indeed we share in His sufferings". This is the hard part, a clue that the Christian life is not for sissies. A movie called "The Counterfeiters" about a Jewish concentration camp in World War II, provides what I think to be a great illustration of the Christian's struggle with this concept. It is a true story of a group of Jewish men who were hand picked out of various concentration camps to develop counterfeit English pounds and American dollars. They had all seen the very worst of conditions during the previous five years. After being assigned this task by the Nazis, they were treated like kings relaitive to their previous enviornment. Clean, soft beds, showers with soap, normal meals, and a purpose in life that had value to somebody (albeit the enemy), were luxuries that they had not had in some time. The problem was that they were being used to finance the German effort in the war, which caused an interesting dilemma for them. Should they continue to perform for their bosses and enjoy a life that was tolerable to them but that could result in the success of the monsters who were responsible for the horrific treatment of their people? Or should they sabatoge the operation and risk going back to conditions that they knew would mean horrific suffering and ultimate death?

As Christians we face similar decisions of smaller extremes constantly. Many times when we choose to be comfortable we are sacrificing much, in ways we won't even know until later. And often when we choose to sacrifice we are gaining much, also in ways we may not see immediately. Jesus carries this concept out to its logical conclusion in in Luke 9:25:

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

In the same way I think this verse can be applied on a smaller scale, by saying, "What good is it to gain anything in the way of ease, comfort, safety, security, power or pleasure, if it means we have to compromise in some way on the things that we really care about."