Why the cost of following Christ these days is not as high as it was in the time of Christ, the early church, the Reformation, the Puritans, revivals, etc.?

The problem is the Cheap Grace that ¨Christians churches preach nowadays.

The cheap grace is the mortal enemy from our church. Nowadays we are fighting over the Grace that costs. The meaning of Cheap Grace is Grace sold at the markets as trinkets owned. Grace with no price, Grace with no cost. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Cheap Grace is preaching forgiveness without repentance, christening without an ecclesiastic discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap Grace without discipleship, Grace without the cross, Grace without Jesus Christ alive and incarnated. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How would you define the cost of following Christ?

Many churches nowadays have lowered, minimized, or simply distorted the cost of being a true disciple. We have looked for the answers in the humanism, psychology, mysticism, philosophy, dogmas and religious rituals, but we do not want to go to God´s word. Are we afraid of listening to the answer?

We want a controllable God, an easy to handle and comfortable gospel, a Christ focus on men and their needs. An anthropocentric gospel. We do not want a King to serve and to give glory to. We want a servant to pamper us and serve us. Sadly, that is the attitude of many of those who called themselves Christians.

Two things will help us define the cost of following Christ:

1. God´s word as the maximum authority.
2. The way believers from the early church experienced it.

The cost of following Christ: From an historical perspective.

All the apostles (except John) were stoned, beheaded, hanged, and crucified. If the gospel does not change, why we reject this for us? The reason is because we’re are living and preaching a Gospel different from the one Christ preached and by which his disciples lived and died for.

Millions of men and women have given their lives for Christ, they have been jailed, and tortured, executed, and many were and will be rejected by their own family and friends. Am I better than them? Should God make a concession to some and not others? 2 Timothy 3:12 ¨In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted".

¿Do you want to live a godly life? Do not expect anything less than PERSECUTION.

The cost of following Christ: On Jesus Christ own words.

Luke 14:26

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple¨.

Jesus calls us to love him with a greater and deeper love that the one we could feel for someone else, to the point that everybody else can see that Jesus Christ is our priority, and that feeling to grow a deeper devotion to Him is bigger than the desire of attachment to others including oneself.

Here in Nicaragua and Latin America leaving our family is seeing as something absurd with the goal of following Christ, we prefer to listen the voices and advises from our parents, grandparents, uncles, instead of listening to the voice of God and follow his word, we want to please men more and be good with them rather than to please God and give Him all honor and all glory.

Following Christ has a very high cost, not following him has an even higher cost.

Application:

•  What thins am I loving more than Christ?
• What is your life’s philosophy? Do you live for this world´s delights or you live in obedience to God?
• Are you abhor each day to love Christ the more and more? John 3:30
• Are you willing to follow Christ no matter the cost?