The Cost Of Discipleship

The expression is still used in parts of the Middle East today. A few years ago a missionary asked a rich young Turkish man to go with him on a trip to Europe, during which time the missionary hoped to disciple the man. When the young man replied that he must bury his father, the missionary offered his sympathy and expressed surprise that the father had died. The man explained, however, that his father was alive and healthy and that the expression “bury my father” simply meant staying at home and fulfilling his family responsibilities until his father died and he received his share of the inheritance.

This guy in our story wanted to be sure to be around for the reading of the will. He said, “I trust you Jesus, but I want to hedge my bets with my inheritance.”

The response given by Jesus indicates that when He calls us to follow, He expects us to obey without delay. The word: “follow me” is in the present imperative. Jesus is literally saying: “Today, this hour, I want you to follow me and become my disciple.”

The call of Jesus comes before any call of this world. Our obedience to Him must take priority over our obedience to any other obligation or duty we may feel we have. Jesus does not want us to neglect our families, but our families are never to pull us away from following the Lord. When there is a conflict, Jesus must always come first! So much so that at another point in time Jesus indicated that our love for our families must look like hatred in comparison to our love for our Lord.

Are you putting Jesus first? Are you paying the price to follow Him, or are you looking for any and all kinds of excuses to avoid obeying Him? Even if those excuses appear to be noble and full of good intentions, if they are keeping us from following Christ –then they are wrong!

We need more of the attitude of the young boy who ran the mile for his school in a high school competition.

The command came, "On your mark, get set," and then the pistol cracked and the race was on. A fine athlete sprang to the lead, and when the race was over he had broken the state record. Only a few other runners even finished the race. Many dropped out when they saw they could not win. As the field crew was bringing out the hurdles for the next race, one of the judges yelled, "Get those hurdles out of the way. This race is not over. Look!" And around the turn came a runner, panting, & staggering. The crowd stood in silent disbelief as he made his way over the last hundred yards, and literally fell across the finish line, grinding his face into the cinder track.

One of the judges ran to the boy, turned him over on his back, took his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his face. "Son, why didn’t you drop out? What are you doing in the mile race anyway?" Between gasps, the boy explained that his school had a good miler who had gotten sick just a few days before. The coach had promised to have a man in every event, and so he had asked the boy to run the mile. "Well son, why didn’t you just drop out when you saw that you had lost?" The boy answered, "Judge, they didn’t send me here to quit. They didn’t send me here to win. They sent me here to run this mile, & I ran it!"