The Danger Not Being a Disciple

The Cost of Nondiscipleship

In The Cost of Discipleship, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that the first call every Christian experiences is “the call to abandon the attachments of this world.” The theme of his classic book is summarized in one potent sentence: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

Based on what we’ve heard from Jesus in the Gospels, we’d have to agree that the cost of discipleship is great. But I wonder if the cost of nondiscipleship is even greater.

A few months before becoming a pastor, I stood atop a mountain in the heart of Hyderabad, India. This high point in the city housed a temple for Hindu gods. I smelled the offerings that had been given to the wooden gods behind me. I saw teeming masses in front of me. Every direction I turned, I glimpsed an urban center filled with millions upon millions of people.

And then it hit me. The overwhelming majority of these people had never even heard the gospel. They offer religious sacrifices day in and day out because no one has ever told them that, in Christ, the final sacrifice has already been offered on their behalf. As a result they live without Christ, and if nothing changes, they’ll die without Him as well.

As I stood on that mountain, God gripped my heart and flooded my mind with two resounding words: “Wake up.” Wake up and realize that there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and a 401(k). Wake up and realize there are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial, meaningless “battles” you focus on. Wake up to the countless multitudes who are currently destined for a Christless eternity.

The price of our nondiscipleship is high for those without Christ. It is high also for the poor of this world.

Consider the cost when Christians ignore Jesus’ commands to sell their possessions and give to the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on better comforts, larger homes, nicer cars and more stuff. Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves. Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence.

Where have we gone wrong? How did we get to the place where this is actually tolerable?

Indeed, the cost of nondiscipleship is great. The cost of believers not taking Jesus seriously is vast for those who don’t know Christ and devastating for those who are starving and suffering around the world. But the cost of nondiscipleship is not paid solely by them. It is paid by us as well.

Consider Mark 10, another time when a potential follower showed up only to hear Jesus challenge him with the seemingly impossible: “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”

Did you catch the second half of Jesus’ invitation? If we’re not careful, we can misconstrue these radical statements from Jesus in the Gospels and begin to think that He doesn’t want the best for us. But He does. Jesus wasn’t trying to strip this man of all his pleasure. Instead He was offering him the satisfaction of eternal treasure. Jesus was saying, “It will be better, not just for the poor, but for you too, when you abandon the stuff you are holding on to.”

This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something—someone—worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches.

The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing Him.

David Platt is the pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala.

David Platt shares how every believer can live radically abandoned for Christ at radical.charismamag.com