Being a Christian is Costly

Matthew 16:24-27
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds.’”

I have had the opportunity to visit several churches in the past 10 years. Sadly, one thing I have noticed in many of the churches that I have visited is, many things that are said in the Bible are not preached with the same emphasis or with the same intended meaning of that of the author. For instance, this particular Scripture (Matt. 16:24-27), is sometimes preached with a less than adequate emphasis or is avoided and disregarded entirely.

Why?

This section of Scripture is hard to accept. Jesus is to the point. He doesn’t give you any options. Jesus says that you must deny yourself if you want to be a Christian. Deny yourself…that goes against our culture. That goes against what we want to do. That goes against the beliefs that we have of what will make us happy.

Our culture and our world, demand that we live selfish, self-centered lives. It has been drilled in our minds that our goal in life is to seek happiness in everything we do. If it doesn’t sound fun, don’t do it. If we aren’t happy, do something else. If we are living this way, we are living for ourselves.

The reason this Scripture is hard for us to read is because it goes against our worldly desires. But Jesus is telling us that if we live our lives like that, we are not living for Him. He goes on to say that if we turn from our worldly ways and desires and do as He says, then we will receive the true blessings. What we see as sacrifice and a burdensome life, Jesus describes as being obedient to Him and we will receive the blessing from it.

One of the main things that Christians are called to do is to make disciples. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus is to the point here, also, when He say’s “Go.” We are to make disciple. It takes sacrifice to disciple someone. You will have to deny yourself to share the love of God.
If you give your life to Christ, you will find it