The Cost of Following Christ

by Robert Jacobs

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. — “The Cost of Discipleship,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer dismantles the theological fallacy he terms “cheap grace,” the belief that we can live our lives any way we choose because our sin has been covered by the sacrificial blood of Christ. Cheap grace requires no repentance and brings no transformation. It is a “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Bonhoeffer teaches that true grace is costly. Foremost, the grace in which we stand cost God the blood of his very Son, a price we will never fully understand. Additionally, Bonhoeffer turns to the new testament to argue that this grace also, in the words of Christ, necessitates that we “take up [our] cross and follow [Him]” (Matt 16:24). Thus, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for [Christ] will find it” (Matt 16:25).

While I am sure you have read countless devotionals (including the ones on this blog) and heard innumerable sermons on “taking up your cross” and following Christ, one question always remains: What does this practically look like? This is a wonderful question that, unfortunately, has no easy answer. However, for the sake of clarity, let’s look at one specific example from the first-century church to try and get a grasp on the costly nature of following Christ.

In Acts 19, Luke recounts one of Paul’s experiences in Ephesus. After performing many signs (Acts 19:11)—with demons even admitting that they knew of Paul’s faith (Acts 19:15)—many of the people in the city were “seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor” (Acts 19:17). In fact, these people held God in such reverence that “many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done” (Acts 19:16).

So, what does this act of confession have to do with the cost of following Christ? First, confession costs your pride. These individuals did not pray a silent prayer of confession behind closed doors. No, they “openly” confessed what they had done to their fellow believers. Every scrap of self-glory and honor had to be placed at the foot of Christ in this act of open and honest confession.

Abandoning your pride not costly enough for you? Well, in the very next verse Luke provides a more concrete example of cost. He writes, “a number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas” (Acts 19-20).

Based on the purchasing power of a drachma in the first century, fifty thousand drachmas today would be approximately worth $2.3 million USD.

Let that settle in for a second: $2.3 MILLION.

Oh, and don’t forget, that the $2.3 million was only the value of the texts. That does not calculate all of the revenue these individuals could have made off of practicing the dark arts.

In order to follow Christ, these individuals both abandoned their livelihood and destroyed the large investment they had made in their job materials. In destroying their books, they demonstrated the value of Christ in comparison to their demonic texts. A relationship with Christ, in their eyes, was far more valuable than the market price of their books or the monetary gain of living and working in a profession contrary to the will of God.

Do you value your relationship with Christ like these men did? Do you see Him as worth more than all of your possessions? Do you see Him as worth more than your Job? Do you see Him as worth more than your sin? If we seek to truly follow Christ, we must value Him above everything else.

The former sorcerers in Acts 19 did not abandon their demonic profession because they needed to “change” or “police” their behavior. They stopped practicing sorcery because they valued Christ more than their witchcraft. In this way, we also do not seek to simply modify or stop our sinful behaviors; instead, we realize that we cannot turn back to our sin because it would require us to turn our gaze from Him.

God Can't Use Me

by Robert Jacobs

“You don’t understand. God can’t use me anymore.”

After being around Living Hope long enough, you begin to hear this phrase (or something like it) with a sort of regularity.  From the online forums to the face-to-face groups, both men and women express a deep seeded belief that because they fell into a life style of sin after having formerly served God faithfully, they are now disqualified from serving Him in the future.

This logic goes something like this. “I made a commitment to God to serve him. I then infected myself with sin. Therefore, I can no longer serve him as I did before.” This reasoning posits the individual as a kind of spiritual leper, a soul infected and contagious.

While illness is an accurate metaphor for sin—this is particularly true of Leprosy, which causes you to lose more and more of yourself to the sickness as it consumes you—we serve a Savior who specifically asserted that He exercises authority over both physical and spiritual illness. To say that we can no longer serve God because of our past sin struggles, no matter if they happened before or after conversion, is simply false.

While we could go to a passage like the healing of the paralytic to demonstrate Jesus’ authority over the realm of sin through a medical metaphor (Matt 9:1–8, Mk 2:1–12, Lk 5:17–26,) I think that to correct this misconception we need to look at a less symbolic and more literal passage.  In 1 King 17-2 Kings 2, we find the story of Elijah, one of the most discussed prophets found in the Old Testament histories. This notoriety is not hard to understand given his famous interaction with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18:16-46) and the fact that he did not experience physical death (2 Kings 2:11).

However, Elijah’s tenure as a prophet was not marked by unwavering faithfulness. Immediately after Elijah’s faith fueled defeat of the prophets of Baal, Jezebel became so infuriated that she put out a call for Elijah’s death. In fear and disobedience, Elijah fled a little over 100 miles on foot. I am prone to look for symbolism, but I have to point out that Elijah’s journey of disobedience and faithlessness took him from Mt. Carmel in the promise land back to Mt. Horeb, also known as Mt. Sinai. In other words, Elijah metaphorically “undid” the entire exodus journey taken by Israel, the prophet fleeing from the land of freedom to the land of slavery.

Yet, even in this disobedience, this running back to the land of slavery, God still intimately connects with Elijah. After great displays of God’s power through an earthquake, storm, and fire, He intimately communes with His servant through a “gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12). Through the whisper, a form of communication that the listener must work to hear by eliminating all competing noise, God reminds Elijah of his mission, instructing him to “go back the way [he] came” (1 Kings 19:15). God reminds Elijah not only of his specific assignment for that moment but his overall mission to live a life defined not by spiritual slavery but by freedom.

Through Elijah’s example, we can see that one can effectively serve God even after a season of disobedience, with the prophet going on to faithfully serve God until he was taken to heaven “in a whirlwind” (2 Kings 2:11). Almost more importantly, though, the narrative reveals how God used the time when Elijah was on Mt. Horeb to deepen His relationship with His prophet.

Because of his disobedience, Elijah experiences what I like to call “a divine stop,” a moment when all other aspects of your life seem to fall away and you and God commune in an extremely intimate way. While I do not think that God wants us to be disobedient so we can experience a divine stop, He often uses our fleeing from freedom back to slavery to do such a work. Several of the men that I have walked with at Living Hope have experienced a stop because of their sin, with God removing them from church leadership, jobs, and friendships for a time so that they can hear His whisper.

There are some very important questions that we should reflect on as we consider this topic in light of Elijah’s example:

•  Are we running from the land of freedom, back to the land of slavery? Do we, like the Israelites, forget about the bitterness of slavery and instead lionize our former oppression?
• Do we see divine stops as a form of punishment, or as an opportunity to connect with our Father in a deep and intimate way?
• Do we trust that God will equip us with the strength to “go back the way [we] came,” so we can serve Him in the land of freedom again?

This last question is truly key. Elijah did not stay on Mt. Horeb, but instead began to journey back to the life God intended for him. May we have the same reaction when we find ourselves on our own Mt. Horeb.

The Ice-Cold Truth

by Robert Jacobs

Until I get about half way through my first cup of coffee in the morning, my brain is completely incapable of communicating or interpreting anything in a coherent manner. Knowing this limitation, I normally put off reading my Bible until I can clear the cobwebs out of my mind with the help of my morning pour-over. Until then, I typically flip through my Facebook feed, making myself feel connected to hundreds of “friends” that, in reality, I have not talked to in years.

But this devotional is not about social media usage (though I should probably think about that as a topic for the future). Rather, it is about something I saw one morning during my zombie-like scroll session. Amongst the pictures of babies covered in spaghetti and grumpy cat memes, I saw a link that a friend had posted to a T-Shirt that read, “I [heart] accountability.”

It immediately gave me pause. Do I love accountability? I mean, I know that it’s biblical. I know that it’s an important spiritual discipline. But do I love it?

Activating the English PhD side of my brain—the coffee was obviously doing its job—I realized that it all depended on how I defined the word love. I “love” Ricky’s chocolate cakes because they bring me great joy and taste like a little slice of heaven. However, I also “love” my wife, who despite being like a little slice of heaven the majority of the time still lives in her flesh just as I do.

I decided that to truly evaluate if I “loved” accountability, I would have to define love as describing something that brought me immeasurable good, but did not necessarily engender happiness 100% of the time. Within these denotative confines, I did indeed “love” accountability.

The problem is that most people do not define love the way that I just did. Instead, most equate the terms love and happiness. Thus, one would only “love” something if it consistently made you happy. If you have ever had true, biblical accountability, you will know that it is not always a bed of roses.

Accountability should always be about calling you up to who God intended you to be, to remind you of the life God has called you to live. Sometimes this feels good, a kind of warm affirmation of your divine mission. Other times, it feels like an ice-cold bucket of water, shocking you as you realize that you have strayed from what God intends for your life.

Because we fear and dislike that ice water bath of truth, we will often spurn any and all attempts to hold us accountable. In Proverbs 5, Solomon describes the regret associated with dismissing the loving words of correction often associated with accountability: 

At the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.” (Prov 5:11-13)

As we ponder accountability, we need to ask ourselves some very important questions:

• ·      Do we, like Solomon’s foolish man, despise the loving correction that often comes with biblical accountability or do we embrace it, knowing it will bring us immeasurable good though not always happiness?
• ·      Are we willing for our godly mentors to call us up to who God created us to be, to be holy as Christ is holy (1 Pet 1:16)?
• ·      Do we become angary and defensive when someone attempts to hold us accountable or do we accept their loving and truth filled comments, reflecting on our heart and choices?

Though it can be hard, we must learn to engage in biblical accountability, knowing that if we experience discomfort, it is for the purpose of making us more like Christ. If we reject the truth spoken through our mentors, we will find that at the end of our life we will be full of regret, just like Solomon’s foolish man.