Cost of Being a Disciple

One of my favorite songs from Hillsong is Devotion, I sing this song nearly everyday. The bridge simply repeats: “I will take up my cross and follow you wherever you lead me.” Jesus makes it pretty clear in this passage,

And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Jesus provides some examples:

1. If you want to build a tower, you estimate the costs before laying the foundation; otherwise, you will hear: “This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.”
2. Going into battle, first compare your forces with that of the opposing army. If it looks like sure defeat, time to send a delegation and work out a compromise!
3. Salt is only good when it is salty!

In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, The Cost of Discipleship, provides much to consider with this as a framework. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, “It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

It’s time to let go of this world and grab onto that which is eternal!