Mark 8:34
"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'”

“Deny himself.” “Take up his cross.” “Follow me”.
I want to start off this new section with small article about counting the cost of following Jesus. I don’t think I really need to say much more on this verse. Jesus, as usual, makes it pretty clear what the cost is in this verse. But what does it mean for us to deny ourselves, pick up our crosses and follow Him.

When I was in Africa in 2004, I remembering asking my friend what it meant to follow Jesus, how I knew I was following Him, not going left or right. What does it mean to be a disciple? He told me I would know, that if I was seeking Him daily for what His will was and do it, that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else. This has been an area of interest for me since that day. I have always been fixated on what it really means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple of Christ. Through the years I have done things that I thought I had to do in order to sort of earn this title of Christ follower only to find that what I was doing was trying to earn an identity I was already given. My friend told me once that discipleship is learning to live consistently with who we already are. This is not about learning to how to perform, it is about learning to live the way God intended you to.

Let’s take a look at a classic example of Jesus telling someone what it really takes to be a disciple of Christ. It takes place in Luke 18:18-29.

¹⁸A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
 ¹⁹"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. ²⁰You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
 ²¹"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
 ²²When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
²³When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. ²⁴Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
 ²⁶Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"
 ²⁷Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
 ²⁸Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"
 ²⁹"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."

Jesus asks the young ruler if he had obeyed the commandments set down that dealt with other people. He had since he was a boy, but Jesus then ups the ante. He asks him to sell off all his possessions, and then come and follow him. We should notice how Jesus redirects the question from what is required for salvation to what it takes to follow Him. Salvation is the beginning of the journey, of the relationship, not the end. Here he has a decision to make.  Is Jesus really worth giving it all up? Is Jesus really worth selling everything, giving up what he held so closely? Or is Jesus only worth the bare minimum that the law requires? It is a question that Jesus proposes to all of us.

So what does it look like for us in our daily lives? For this rich young ruler, it meant that he was to sell everything he had, give it to the poor and follow Jesus. While this did include his material wealth we don’t often think of what the next part cost him. He was to leave his old life behind, his life as a ruler, a person of influence and authority. Suddenly the cost is so much more. It was not just his wealth but his position, his job. For me right now, it means going to a foreign country, starting new ministries in areas I have no experience in and living with no financial security, which is a scary prospect to say the least. The only way I will be able to do it is with God’s strength working through me, just as it says in verse 27.

But why does God as these things of us. Why would He ask us to give up the blessings that He gives us? It is so important for us to understand why God is asking us to say yes to all He asks of us. If we do not understand why, then it turns from a response to God goodness and love to something else, some sort of obligation. God does not want us to do the things He asks out of some obligation. He wants us to respond to Him, to do them out of love for Him.
God asks us to do these things for several general reasons. He always has specific reasons for specific things He asks, most of which we will never know. The first general reason is because of the life we live as we respond to Him in the way He asks. Those that have stepped out in faith in a serious way, financially or in their time, know what happens when we do that. God meets us in powerful ways, ways that He does not meet us in in “normal”, everyday life for the most part. We are blessed when we step into those things. God has a plan for us, and that plan includes us giving it all up for Him because we were created to do just that. We feel most alive when we live that life, when we live to see that plan completed. It is a life filled with all the things that make life worth living. This doesn’t mean it is easy, the Bible is pretty clear on that. But God’s love covers over all those things and makes it all worth it.

The second general reason is love. In any health relationship there is a give and take from both parties. One side gives sometimes and the other gives in other times. The same is true with God, even thought He doesn’t really need anything. But God gives to us the things we need and desire when appropriate because He loves us and we should do the same for Him. We should give our time, our money, and our hearts because we love Him and want to give Him things, to bless Him. In a marriage, one spouse gives spontaneously to the other because they love them, they want to bless them and make them happy, for no other reason, at least ideally. We should do the same for God, without the expectation of something in return.

So I will ask you to ask yourself, are you living the bare minimum like the rich ruler? Are you just doing enough to get by? Or are you living the life that God has planned, a life that is completely surrendered to God? Are you stepping out in faith in your finances and time? Maybe for you, the cross that Jesus talks about in Mark is a financial cross. He wants you to give more, either to your church or to someone in need. Maybe the cross is a time cross. He wants you to take that vacation time and do a short-term missions trip or your Thursday nights to help out with the church’s youth groups or possibly spend more time with your family. Take some time. Examine what is going on in your life and don’t always look for what you can do. Look for those things that God wants you to step out in faith to. Ask God to tell you how to bless Him and bring Him joy. When we live for that, we live the life God created us to life.