The Cost of Being a Disciple

~ This post is not listed in chronological order ~

Luke 14:25-35

Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said,
You cannot be my disciple, unless you love me more than you love your father and mother, your wife and children, and your brothers and sisters. You cannot come with me unless you love me more than you love your own life.
And you cannot be my disciple if you do not carry your own cross and follow me.
For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t sit down first and compute the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?
Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone who observe it begin to ridicule and laugh at you.
They will say, ‘He started something he couldn’t finish.’
Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? [Note]
If he thinks he won’t be able to defend himself, he will send messengers and ask for peace while the other king is still a long way off.
In the same way, whoever is not ready to give up all he has may not be my disciple.
Salt is good, but if it no longer tastes like salt, how can it be made to taste salty again?
It is worth nothing. It is not good for the soil, and it is not good for the trash pile. It will be thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

A king going to make war against forces that are numerically superior must consider carefully whether his smaller forces have the capacity to defeat the enemy. He realizes full well that it is either absolute committal or abject surrender. And so it is in the life of Christian discipleship. There can be no halfway measures. [←Back]