Cost of Discipleship

The basis of the Christian life must be the life of Jesus. In Philippians, Paul appeals to the church to live to a higher standard of living on the grounds of Jesus’ life and death. In Matthew 16, straight after announcing his death for the first time, Jesus gives his disciples the implication of beings his follower: they must deny themselves and pick up their cross. (Mat 16:21, 24).

Following Jesus, we are called to place him above everything that we have. He has a higher mission than a life of tranquility (Mat 10:36), to the point that when it comes to choosing between our family and Christ, Christ must always come first. Between trying to please our parents in pursuing that career they always hoped for us, and deny ourselves to follow Christ, Jesus must come first (Mat 10:35).

The call to pick up our cross is one of publicly living our lives for Christ (Mat 10:33, 38). We are called to let go of our life for the sake of Jesus to truly find it, by willing to suffer, to be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12), even die for the sake of Christ. If we cling on to this life, leisure, popularity, financial security, we will never live the life God has for us, we will always be empty. When we deny ourselves as Christ denied himself (Phil 2:6), we become free to follow Jesus, receiving eternal life (Rom 6:23), and at once we experience the blessings he has for us (Eph 1:3). Christ was highly exalted for his humility (Phil 2:9), we will also be revealed in glory if we suffer with him (Col 3:4, Rom 8:17).

True discipleship, is walking in the footsteps of Jesus, who ended crucified. We are promised persecution (2 Tim 3:12). We walk in the steps of those who followed Christ before us, who denying themselves have died for it: John the Baptist (Mat 14:7), Stephen (Acts 7:60), James (Acts 12:2). This fulfills the words of Jesus who warned his disciples they would be persecuted and put to death (Mat 24:9).

After warning them that it will involve carrying their cross daily, Jesus asks his disciple to consider the cost of following him (Luke 14:28). There is no way of truly following Jesus without denying our self (Luke 19:23), but it is also the only way to live a live pleasing to God. Serving God is the only thing worth doing, we are to seek his kingdom first (Mat 6:32), not promised any earthly benefits, our treasure is stored in heaven (Mat 6:21). Knowing that Christ was able to endure the cross for the Joy set before him, (Heb 12:2), also when we serve Christ, when we are reviled and persecuted for his name’s sake, we rejoice knowing that our reward his great in heaven for so others persecuted the prophets before us (Mat 5:12), we can rejoice with the apostles for being counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name of Jesus (Acts 4:41).