The Cost of Discipleship - A Reflection on Matthew 19:16-22


Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

As you probably know I teach in the Schools of Discipleship that we are currently running online. You should really consider registering for the next batches starting in September, especially if you like these reflections. What you will get out of the School is far more than what you will get out of these. Here is the link if you want to join: https://bit.ly/hsischool. Anyway, I am currently teaching about the cost of discipleship, and I use this young man that we read about today as an example of the cost to follow Jesus. 

Jesus tells this rich young man that if he wants to follow him, to first go sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor; then come follow him. What do you think the man did? He ran for his life. What would you do if Jesus asked you to give up something that you valued if you really wanted to follow him? But he won’t, you say. Are you sure about that? Let us look at a couple of things that Jesus says about the cost of discipleship, and then ask ourselves if we really want to follow him, or if he is best left alone.

Jesus once said: “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” (Luke 14:26). Now we can take this literally which means nobody should be important to us but Jesus. However, because I’m a nice guy, let me be charitable and say that what he meant by this was that we should put him above everybody else. But is that what we do? Put Jesus over everybody else in our lives? Isn’t it true that for many of us he takes last place?

Then he said: “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:33). Here is telling us, that just as we are not supposed to put ANYONE above him, we are not to put ANYTHING over him. And how do we fare with this? As just one example, if he were to tell us to get off social media — and STAY off it — how many of us would be able to do this? Oh, how would we survive without all those “friends” we have on Facebook? How would we cope without all those “likes” we get? 

“But why is he asking us to do all these things?”, you might ask. “What’s wrong if I spend time on Facebook or Instagram or WhatEver?” Nothing, provided we have our priorities right. If the things of God are not on our list of priorities, forget about being on top, there is the real danger we might be jeopardizing our salvation. Jesus says (I paraphrase), “Don’t run after the things of this world that don’t last, but run after the things of heaven that will last forever. If you believe the things of the world are important, you will love those; but if you believe the things of God are important, you will love those instead” (Matthew 6:21). Guess which way lies life? 

Now think about that joining that School (https://bit.ly/hsischool). 

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here:  https://youtu.be/b8zXjC0ce0k

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