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Day Four: Counting the Cost

How many times have you been eager for something great to happen in your life only to realize how much it would cost you? If you could have known the cost beforehand, would you choose it all over again? Jesus told the disciples to count the cost of following Him because He was asking them to surrender everything. Yes, you read that right. Everything!

Peter experienced firsthand Christ’s authority, humility, and love. He witnessed the healings, the extension of forgiveness, the calming of the seas—ultimately, Christ’s power over all creation. Still he wanted to show himself worthy, declaring, Even if all your other disciples fall away, I never will! In his own strength, he would follow Jesus or die trying!

Then, as Jesus predicted he would, Peter denied association with Him not once, but three times following Jesus’s arrest. At his third denial, Jesus turned and looked at him! Can you imagine Peter’s agony? He committed the very act he believed he would die before doing, and Jesus saw the whole thing! Then, as Peter wept bitterly, the Lord was carried off to die a sinner’s death. 

In the words of Oswald Chambers in My Utmost For His Highest, “Peter did not wait on God, he forecast in his mind where the test would come, and the test came where he did not expect it. Peter’s declaration was honest but ignorant. He could not follow Jesus because he did not know himself of what he was capable.” 

It is the complete revelation of what Jesus was trying to teach them—and us—all along. The Kingdom comes through sacrifice, not through gain. The strength of God’s people is in their humility and dependence on Him. He does not want half a sacrifice, a piece of our hearts, or a part of our lives. He wants every bit of everything. He doesn’t want us to prove anything—just to surrender. 

Reflection: What do you have to sacrifice in order to live a life that is fully surrendered to Jesus?

Prayer: “Lord, forgive me for the times where I did not surrender all that I could to you. Help me to surrender everything to better follow you. Amen.”