The Cost of Following: Self or Christ?Sample

Counting the Cost: Part One

Whether we realize it or not, we make our decisions every day based primarily upon one core and foundational decision: Who we have decided to follow. Will we choose to follow Jesus? Or will we follow self?

Each of us must count the cost of the decision to follow Jesus. What will it mean for us to really follow Him? Are we willing to lose everything if necessary? Are we willing to leave everything? Will we follow Jesus no matter the cost? Every day, all throughout the day, we will be tested on this decision. Who will be first? Will it be Christ or will it be self?

Jesus says plainly and boldly that we must pick up our cross if we want to follow Him. We must choose Him over our closest relationships, over our possessions, and even over our own lives. There is not a lot of wiggle room here. Either we are willing to leave everything renouncing all that we hold dear and pick up our cross and follow Him ... or we are not.

How can anyone really do this? Doesn't it seem utterly impossible? Yes, because it is. We are incapable of doing the impossible and doing it with the right heart motives. But nothing is impossible with God. In truth none of us can follow Jesus without His Spirit helping us and leading us from the inside out. If it is your heart to be a true disciple of Jesus, I encourage you to ask Him right now for His amazing grace to help you assess the cost and His amazing grace to grant you not only the desire and the willingness to pay the cost but the ability to actually do it. Leave everything He is calling you to leave. Count it all as nothing in order to follow Him.

PRAYER

Lord, you know how difficult, uncomfortable, and frightening it is for me to think about what I might need to change in my life or things that I might need to give up in order to follow Jesus fully. Please deal gently with your servant as you lead me down the road of true discipleship. Please work in my heart what I am unable to work in my heart myself–an undying and unwavering allegiance to your Son alone.

In Jesus' name, I pray,

Amen