What It Actually Means to Follow Jesus: The Cost Nobody Mentions

We have made following Jesus sound easier than He made it sound. Our invitations to faith emphasize grace — rightly — but often omit what Jesus consistently placed alongside it: a cross. The same Jesus who said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) also said "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). Both are true. Both are essential. A Christianity that offers one without the other is not the one Jesus came to establish.

Understanding the real cost of discipleship is not meant to discourage. It is meant to produce the kind of faith that is durable — rooted deeply enough to survive the seasons that shallow faith cannot.

The Three Would-Be Disciples

In Luke 9:57–62, Jesus encountered three would-be disciples in rapid succession. The first volunteered enthusiastically to follow Him anywhere. Jesus responded not with welcome but with a warning: the Son of Man had no permanent home. Are you sure you understand what "anywhere" means? The second was called directly by Jesus but asked for time to bury his father first — a reasonable, even honorable, request. Jesus answered with one of the hardest sayings in the Gospels: "Let the dead bury their own dead." The third wanted to follow but first say goodbye to his family. Again, reasonable. Jesus replied that no one who looks back while plowing is fit for the kingdom of God.

These are not the responses of someone who is trying to build a large following. Jesus seemed, in these moments, almost actively committed to thinning the crowd — to ensuring that those who came did so with full knowledge of what they were entering. He was not interested in enthusiastic starters. He was building committed finishers.

What "Deny Yourself" Actually Means

The command to deny yourself is frequently softened into something like "put God first" — which is true but misses the radicalism of what Jesus said. The Greek word for deny — aparneomai — is the same word used to describe Peter's denial of Christ in the courtyard. To deny yourself is to disown yourself as the lord of your own life. To say, functionally: I am no longer the one this life is organized around. My agenda, my comfort, my reputation, my plans — these are not the center of gravity anymore. He is.

This is a daily reality, not a one-time decision. Luke's version of the call to discipleship includes the word "daily": "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). The cross is not carried once at conversion and set down. It is taken up every morning and carried through every day in which we choose His will over ours, His glory over our comfort, His purposes over our preferences.

The Paradox of Losing to Find

Jesus's explanation of why the cost is worth it is framed as a paradox: "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." (Matthew 16:25) The person who protects their life from the demands of discipleship — who keeps their autonomy, manages their own agenda, and gives God only what is convenient — ends up with less life, not more. And the person who surrenders their life to Christ discovers, progressively, that what they have lost was not worth keeping and what they have gained cannot be taken away.

This is not a transaction in which we give up good things for lesser ones. It is a transaction in which we give up lesser things for infinitely better ones. The self we are asked to deny is the small, anxious, grasping self organized around its own survival. What we are offered in exchange is participation in a life that is larger, freer, and more oriented toward love than anything our undenied self could construct.

Counting the Cost Before You Build

Jesus told two parables back to back about the importance of counting the cost before committing: a builder who calculates whether he has enough resources to complete the tower before laying the foundation, and a king who assesses his military strength before engaging an enemy (Luke 14:28–32). The point of both was the same: half-committed discipleship is worse than honest unbelief. A foundation without a tower is a monument to failed planning.

He was not trying to frighten people away from following. He was trying to produce followers whose commitment had been honestly counted and deliberately chosen — because that kind of commitment is the only kind that will hold when the cost becomes actual rather than theoretical. Know what you are signing up for. Then sign up, with open eyes and full hearts, for the most worthwhile thing a human life can be given to.

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." — Matthew 16:24

Lord, we want to follow You with our whole selves, not just the parts that are convenient. Give us the courage to count the cost honestly — and the grace to find, as we lose ourselves in You, that we have found the only life worth living. Amen.