The Price Of Following Him

The Price of Following Him

In this world that we live there are a great number of people that desire to follow Christ, isn't that true? How many here have the desire to follow Christ? Without a doubt, all of us here want or desire deeply in our hearts to follow the our King and Savior. Then, what do we do? What we do is we look for a church, we become members and we think that by doing this we are following Christ. We think that by doing this we are serving Him. But what occurs most often is that in reality we are not serving Him, we are not following Him. The biggest reason for this is that we have not realized that following Him is something very costly. Yes, you heard it correctly, following Christ is something very costly. I am sure that at this moment many of you are thinking that what I am saying makes no sense, but I tell you that following Christ is very costly. Let's look in the Word of God to see what I am talking about.

Luke 9:57-62 - And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 58 And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. 59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. 62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

This is very interesting, isn't it? Here we see the lesson about the price that we have to pay when we decide to follow Jesus. Let's examine these three examples very closely to realize that following Jesus is not something that can be taken lightly, it is a serious matter.

In the first example we see that this man told Jesus that he would follow him where ever he went. Why? I am sure that this man had the same reasons that all of us had. I am sure that it was because he was pleased with the presence of our Lord and his followers, that the teachings and the wisdom of the Lord motivated him, that he appreciated all the good that the Lord had done. I ask you, aren't these the reasons why we started following Him? Of course they are, we started following Him because in Him we found that peace that we longed for, in Him we found the rest that we sought, in Him we found a great love and genuine forgiveness. How many say praise God? Then, just like that man, we say that we will follow Him, but look closely at what Jesus said to him. Jesus told him that there was a great price that he would have to pay.

Jesus told him: "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Here Jesus is using Himself as the prime example. He denied Himself completely, He had no place where he could rest His head. In other words, He was warning him that being one of his disciples would not be easy. He was warning him that to follow Him would be very costly. Let's analyze this closely, let's see if it applies in out lives. Here we see that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He was on his way to accomplish the mission that God the Father had sent Him to do. The reason why Jesus says this to this man is because when we become disciples of Christ, when we take the calling that our Father has given us seriously, when we take seriously the mandate of the grand commission, we simply can't rest in the knowledge that we are saved. We can't just take refuge in that alone, we to work and do everything that is possible to expand the Kingdom of God here on earth. Can you imagine if Jesus had not taken the mission that the Father sent him to do seriously? I tell you that is that had been the case we would not be here today. We would not have received the blessings that our celestial Father has poured and will pour over us and will pour over us. Brethren we have to be imitators of Jesus. Like I said previously, Jesus was on His was to Jerusalem, He was on His way to accomplish His mission. I tell you now that we are also on our way to Jerusalem, not the Jerusalem of antiquity, but the New Jerusalem. I am sure that all of us here want to reach this place of rest, this place where there will be no more suffering, this place where we will find ourselves in the presence of the all mighty God, but to reach it there is a great price that we will have to pay.