Would You Follow If It Cost You Everything?

Today, I am examining my heart. What am I holding back from God? Why am I more prone to entertainment than holiness? Why do I seek to shut my brain off “when the work is done” as opposed to finding my rest in Jesus Christ? Simply put: I think the answer is clear, and it should be universal to all people; at times, I am more interested in myself than I am in Christ. Loved ones, to follow Jesus means to die, to this world, to one’s self, and to the things of this world. It means forsaking all for the sake of Christ.

Jesus says “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself. that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John 17:14-17).

 John says “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15) while James says “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4).

This world is not our home. While the Lord blesses us in it, nothing should keep us anchored here. Our eyes need to be fixed on Jesus! He reminds us of the cost of discipleship:“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-33)

Jesus is not saying not to love our families, or sacrifice for them; hyperbolically, he’s saying nothing is as important as He is! I love my wife, but some day we shall be parted by death. I love my kids, but some day, they will leave to start their own lives. Some day, I will stand before my Creator, and all that can save me is Christ’s sacrifice for my sins! When I was baptized in to Christ, I was baptized in to His death. I am now raised up again in to a life like His. So, what is this world to me? I will be a steward of all that God has granted me. I will use my talents to bring increase to the Kingdom. Yet, in the end, I will be standing before Christ and either covered by His blood, or sent away as a worker of iniquity. That’s why my sights need to be on Jesus, and Jesus alone. Romans 6

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self^[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.