The Cost Is Built In

You feel it the moment you say yes

Over the weekend I found myself sitting with Matt Hatch’s book Metamorphosis. It is the kind of book you do not skim. You make time for it. You clear the diary, pour the coffee, and let it work on you. When you close it, your mind keeps moving.

Mine drifted to Elijah, John the Baptist, and Jesus. Different moments. One shared trajectory - the solid thread that ties them together is ‘discipleship’.

Throwing it under the microscope there is a compelling verse that carries the full weight and challenge of what it means to follow Jesus, it’s Luke 9:23. Jesus turns to the crowd, looks straight at them. Not the committed. Not the trained. Not the impressive. Just the crowd. And he says, If anyone (in the same measure as Joel’ prophecy; young or old, male or female, pauper or king) would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. That sentence is the rock-solid foundation of the New Testament vision of following Jesus.

The word disciple wasn’t a Christian invention. It’s worthwhile rolling out the original just to help emphasis what’s being said here; in the gospels the Greek word is mathētēs. A learner. An apprentice. Someone who binds their life to a teacher, not simply to absorb information but to be reshaped by closeness. As we behold Him we are changed and transformed. The striking thing is that the Gospels never stop with you in mind to pause and explain the term. No definition. No framework. No Ted Talk or 15-slide PowerPoint presentation. Jesus simply says, “Follow me.” And something happens.

Throw yourself back into the compelling, driving gospel narrative. Picture the moment. Nets still wet. Fish still flapping. A man holding his livelihood in his hands. There is a pause. A breath. A gasp of astonishment. And then the nets hit the sand. Any discipleship that we undertake, just like faith, begins not with hand-on-heart certainty, conviction and compelling but with trust.

For us, of necessity, the call to follow Jesus carries the cost and weight of discipleship. When Peter steps out of the boat, he is not enrolling. He is relinquishing. When Levi walks away from the tax booth, coins still warm on the table, he is not switching careers. He is shedding an identity. The name disciple comes later. The surrender comes first.

Scripture pushes this pattern backwards if you will, deep into prophetic history. Elijah does not argue Elisha into following him. He just throws a cloak - no words. A mantle. Nothing more. And Elisha understands the implication immediately. He slaughters the oxen, burns the plough, and the smoke says what words do not. Everyone eats. There is no return path. That same prophetic instinct shows up in John the Baptist. John gathers disciples only to release them. When Jesus walks by, John points and steps aside. True discipleship always knows when to let go.

Now hear Luke 9:23 again and turn up the volume. ‘Deny yourself.’ That is not self hatred. It is refusing to let the self keep the throne. Take up your cross daily. Not once. Not heroically. Daily. ‘Follow me.’ Not an idea. A person.

This is where the tension sits. Discipleship always threatens something. Control. Comfort. Delay. ‘Nets’ look different now to your personal ‘nets’, but they still carry weight. And Jesus does not pressure or manipulate.

He stands there and waits.

The invitation is not heavy-handed. It is honest. If nothing in your life ever needs denying, then nothing is really being followed.

Disciples are not admirers. They are people who have stopped negotiating the terms of obedience. That is the cost. And on the other side of the cross, strangely enough, is freedom.

Jesus never softens that truth. And he never needs to.