Following Jesus Will Cost You Something

It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a young pastry chef hoping to climb up the career ladder: taking the sous chef position at a new luxury hotel. So, imagine our family’s shock when my sister turned it down. 

Her reason?
“I brought this job before the Lord, and this is not what he has for me right now.” 

In that moment, my sister expressed something many of us would rather disregard—surrendering to Jesus can mean letting go of other things, sometimes very good things. 

If you are anything like me, maybe you also prefer to think about all the wonderful gifts we gain from Christ. We expect peace, purpose, joy, and fulfillment. And yes, all of that is found in Christ. But eventually, every believer discovers something difficult and unavoidable: following Jesus is going to cost you something.

For some, the cost is dramatic. History is filled with stories of missionaries who crossed oceans, endured persecution, or gave their lives for the Gospel. But for most believers, the cost comes quietly. 

It looks like choosing integrity when compromise would be easier. It looks like surrendering comfort, status, approval, or control. Sometimes it means releasing dreams we carefully built for ourselves. Sometimes it means obeying God without knowing where obedience will lead. The cost may not be dramatic, but it will be real. 

Jesus Never Hid the Cost 

In Mark 8:34, Jesus challenges the crowd saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” This is the part of discipleship we often try to soften. We want Jesus without surrender, and we want purpose without sacrifice. We want our faith journey (and that of those we love) to be comfortable. 

But Jesus never hid the cost of following Him. In John 21, after His resurrection, Jesus has a pivotal conversation with Peter, the disciple who had denied Him three times only chapters earlier. 

John 21 becomes the redemption chapter in Peter’s story. Jesus restores him and reveals exactly what following Him will ultimately cost: 

“When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” —John 21:18b–19 

Right after revealing to Peter that his obedience would eventually lead to suffering and death, Jesus simply says, “Follow me.” He doesn’t promise Peter ease, safety, or spare him from pain. But Jesus also never leaves Peter wondering whether He’s worth it. 

What Will Following Jesus Cost You? Everything and Nothing. 

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…” — 2 Corinthians 4:17–18 

We spend much of our lives trying to build stability, protect ourselves, and secure the future we want. The idea of opening our hands before God can feel deeply unnatural. That kind of surrender feels frightening because, in many ways, it is. 

Yet Scripture continually reminds us that what we lose for Christ is never meaningless. In his 1949 journal entry, missionary Jim Elliot famously wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” 

The apostle Paul understood this deeply. In Philippians 3, after listing his accomplishments, status, and credentials, he writes, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” 

Everything…not because those things were worthless on their own, but because compared to Christ, they no longer held ultimate value. This is the paradox at the center of bowing to Jesus: what feels like everything is actually nothing compared to Christ. The invitation of Jesus is not merely to lose things. It is to find something better. 

Open Hands Are the Posture of Discipleship 

Surrender rarely happens all at once. Most of the time, learning to follow Jesus happens slowly through repeated acts of trust and obedience. We learn to hold things loosely. 

Practice surrendering by intentionally placing the good things in your life before God: your dreams, gifts, talents, possessions, relationships, and desires for comfort, acceptance, or success. Consider writing them down one by one and praying through them. For me, this looks like: 

“Lord, I surrender my dream of owning a home to You. I surrender my desire to get married to You. I surrender my mom, Jody, to You. I surrender my comfort and my future to You.” 

Remind yourself that every good gift comes from God. He may choose to give, take away, grow, redirect, or restore, but ultimately, everything belongs to Him. Open hands are the posture of discipleship. 

Courage Is Built Over Time 

Trusting God with small things over time teaches us to recognize His faithful and tender care, but stretching our trust muscles can be uncomfortable.  

I once sat next to a woman on the way to a Christian women’s conference, and something she shared stayed with me. She told me her young son came home from public school one day, and said he felt the Lord wanted him to speak up to some friends about his faith during a conversation involving a controversial issue. He was nervous, but he did it anyway. 

What surprised me was her response. Instead of encouraging him, she told him, “You are not at school to be a missionary. You are there to get good grades.” Later in the conversation, she admitted that sharing her faith openly with others was something she often struggled with herself. And honestly, I understood that. Most of us naturally want to protect ourselves and the people we love from rejection, discomfort, or awkwardness. 

But if we discourage small acts of courage because they feel uncomfortable or risky, why would we expect resilience to suddenly appear when following Jesus becomes truly costly? I left that conversation realizing how easy it is to unintentionally train ourselves (and our children) to prioritize comfort over obedience. 

Trust muscles are built slowly over time through ordinary acts of faithfulness. Over time, you begin to notice that your resilience grows. You recover faster. You trust deeper. You become less shaken when God asks you to release something. And our obedience doesn’t only affect us. 

Our American culture can cause us to think that discipleship is primarily personal. But obedience creates ripple effects! Courage and surrender spread, but comfort spreads too. Your obedience teaches others what is worth treasuring. 

It can be tempting to hear stories of missionaries and assume they belong to a different category of Christianity. It’s easy to think that they’re people with unusual courage or a radical calling. But the heart of the Great Commission is not ultimately about geography. It’s about surrender, obedience, and becoming disciples who make disciples for the glory of God even when there’s a cost. 

REFERENCES 

Elliot, Elisabeth. The Journals of Jim Elliot. Revell, 1978. 

Scripture quotations are from the ESV.