Counting the Cost

 

Probably all of you have heard the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Over the years, we had a number of pharmaceutical representatives bring lunch to whatever clinic I was working at. The lunch wasn’t really free because you needed to listen to a presentation about whatever medication they were promoting.

 

Our salvation is freely given to us. Jesus won it for us by His death on the cross. But Christianity isn’t a free lunch. There is a cost that we need to be willing to pay in living the Christian life. We live in a world that is steadily growing more antagonistic to Christians and their beliefs. We need to be willing to stand up for what we believe in, even when there is a cost to it.

 

Jesus made some remarks to the crowds following Him that must have startled them. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26-27). Jesus went on to say that His disciples should count the cost of discipleship before deciding to follow Him.

 

Jesus is not saying that we literally have to hate our family. He is saying that being faithful to God must be our first priority and anyone or anything else must be secondary to Him. This involves all our relationships, our work and other activities throughout the day, our finances, and every other aspect of our lives. Following Jesus will inevitably put us into conflict with the world because the world’s value system is often in opposition to God’s. We need to be able to say as Joshua did, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

 

If you are counting the cost today and it doesn’t seem like much, it may be that you have grown close enough to God that all the things of this world don’t seem to amount to much. If, on the other hand, you find that you are minimizing the cost by living as the world does, you should re-examine the priorities you have set.