What Is The Cost?
Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Matthew 16: 25,26
What is the cost of discipleship? How much of the ordinary life can I keep?
Maybe we’ve hoped that when we have obeyed the commands Jesus gives us, we can then attend to our own priorities and interests. At the end of the day, do we ever struggle with the feeling that we have given Jesus enough of ourselves - time, money or attention?
But Christ says, “Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. Give Me your whole self and I will give you a new heart, mind, and way of being.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book The Cost of Discipleship, attacked “easy Christianity” or “cheap grace.” The cost may seem heavy but the alternative is devastating. Non-discipleship means no abiding peace, no life penetrated by love, no faith that sees everything in the light of God’s working for good, no hope that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said He came to bring.