The Cost of Not Following Christ

Following Christ is costly, as He demands your life. Yet not following Him is a grave mistake that is infinitely more expensive.

Some years ago, I came across this video:

The video, titled ‘It Will Cost You Everything’ is an 11-minute long exhortation to count the costs of following Jesus Christ. It brings up an oft-ignored aspect of the Christian life – that to follow Jesus, one must count the costs and be willing to give up everything for the sake of Christ.

This is true.

Christ demands absolute obedience, and a total selling out to His lordship. Simply look to the Gospel of Luke, where we read the following:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:25-27)

How often is it that we focus upon this piece of Scripture? It doesn’t preach well, does it? It doesn’t sound as rosy and positive as ‘God’s plan is always health and safe living.’ Here we learn that those who would be Christ’s disciples must be willing to forsake everything for the sake of Jesus. We must live a “crucified” life.

That’s what it is to follow Jesus.

Following Christ is Difficult

Following Jesus is not easy. It is not necessarily a life of wealth, health, and prosperity. It is not a life of great popularity. In fact, Paul even remarks in 1 Corinthians that,

...If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:17-19, emphasis mine)

In other words, if Jesus has not truly been raised from the dead (that is, He isn’t who He claimed to be), then we’re the most pitiful people in the world. Here we are, living a crucified life where we no longer satisfy the demands of the flesh and follow life’s broad, easy way… and all for nothing? What an awful way to live!

Of course, Paul goes on to write in the next sentence that we do have every reason to hope. Christ is raised, God is God, and our eternal reward is coming. But if this were not so, then we would be living a life of immense sacrifice for no good reason at all.

Following Jesus is expensive, the Bible says. You have to give up much. You don’t just ‘get in’ through the narrow gate and walk the narrow way that leads to life without submitting to Christ and laying down your life. Following Christ will be tough. It’s not for the faint of heart. It is costly.

But NOT following Him is more costly.

Following Christ is Costly… But NOT Following is More Costly

As humans, we stand at the crossroads between two choices: surrender to Christ and be saved, or run from Christ and experience eternal punishment. God gives us the choice between the two. We can choose one or the other, but we will make a choice… whether we realize it or not.

Choosing to follow Christ is costly. To turn to Jesus will ultimately require us to give up some things. As Steve Lawson says in the video shown at the beginning of this article, it will cost us everything. All our possessions, hopes, dreams, desires, talents, strengths, and weaknesses will eventually be submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It may take us some time in getting there (and we will never be perfect at it in this life), but obedience and increasing holiness will be the pattern of the life of a Believer in Jesus.

It’s a costly life. But what are the costs of not following Jesus? Let’s find out.

When one chooses to not follow Jesus, he may initially experience what we might call “rewards.”

Without Jesus, the man is free to pursue his own desires without any resistance at all. He has no moral code obligating him to a higher standard of righteousness, save for the laws and morals that society places on him. There is no voice in his heart pleading with him to quit his sin. There is no community around him holding him to a great moral standard.

If he wants to drink and do drugs, he can do so. If he wants to make lots of money and spend it on his pleasures, he may do so. If his desire is to have as many relationships as he can, he may do that too. Of course, he probably feels worse and worse all the time as he pursues his pleasures, but the world offers those pleasures for a reason: they’re a distraction from the spiritual damage brought on by such a lifestyle.

As his life draws to its end, we may compare it with the life of a man who accepted Christ. Whereas the Christian has little wealth, the unbeliever has great wealth. Whereas the Christian didn’t experience “the world” – that is, the pleasures of an ultimate focus on the self – the unbeliever did.

The unbeliever might even say, “Sure, I’m no saint. But I lived my life to its fullest, and I enjoyed my time here.”

While the Christian had to learn to control his body and say ‘no’ to his desires, the unbeliever spent his entire life in full pursuit of that which made his flesh happy. While the Christian had to obey a greater Master, the unbeliever was free to do as he pleased.

The conclusion? From an outsider’s point of view, one might say that the unbeliever has come out ahead. He denied himself no pleasure and allowed himself whatever he wanted.

But here’s the rub: life has only just begun.

The True Costs Compared

When the unbeliever dies, a terrible fate awaits him. Dying without Christ, the unbeliever stands condemned before God. He pleads with God, perhaps even begs God to spare him the fate of those who do not accept the Lord. Yet God will not. The unbelieving man had every opportunity to believe upon Jesus, but he didn’t do so.

I will not go into detail on what the unbeliever experiences next. However, we must understand one thing: we ALL have an eternal destination. We will go to a place in which our consciousness, our soul, never dies. There are only two places in which to spend this eternity: either Heaven or Hell. In Heaven, those who believed in Christ will experience pleasures that nothing in this world could ever equal or even come close to. In Heaven, there will be perfect bliss and perfect pleasure for all eternity.

But in Hell? In Hell, we have a complete and total absence of pleasure. Scripture tells us that the torment of those in Hell never pauses. There is no cheerful smile in Hell; there is no joy, no happiness, no rest, and – worst of all – no hope.

Thus, the choice becomes clear. We have a choice between the following:

A lifetime of imperfect pleasure (up to 100 years long, if you’re lucky), and an eternity of torment, or
A lifetime of obedience to God (which is NOT always drab and dull), and an eternity of the richest pleasure and life we could possibly imagine.

As we stand back and survey these options, I am reminded of the account in the Bible where Esau, the brother of Jacob, sold his inheritance for a bowl of stew. This man literally sold his entire inheritance for a small bowl of mush. And it probably wasn’t even that good, either. Talk about a bad trade! I’m sure we all would recognize it as such. But if we refuse to accept Christ because “the cost is too great,” then we are doing the same thing Esau did all those years ago.

Why Do People Reject Christ?

A sad truth of the world this: many people are confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and come away having rejected the Savior.

Why?

I mean, wouldn’t everyone desire eternity in paradise? Why reject Christ, when He offers you an eternity of treasure and life and joy?

Simply put, most people reject Christ because they cannot bring themselves to give up their life to Him. They are like the rich young ruler of Mark 10, who walked away from Jesus with sorrow in his heart because he couldn’t give up his earthly possessions for the sake of the Lord.

Those who reject Jesus are rejecting the claim He has over their lives; they reject His Lordship and authority. When you become a follower of Christ, you are purchased by Him at the cost of His life. He owns you. He becomes your Lord and your king.

And in doing so, He – not you – has the right to use your life as He sees fit.

Of course, this is costly. It means giving up the rights to your life in the here and now. But look at what you gain! When your life becomes hidden in Christ, it is truly safe and truly saved. When one rejects Jesus, he is rejecting what is best for him. When a man or woman turns away from the Savior, he or she is embracing the lie that the cost of following Jesus is too great.

Instead, we might ask a counter-question: why would anyone NOT follow Jesus, when the cost is so little?

The Splendor of Following Christ

Think about it. This world is fraught with trouble and difficulty. Life has its highs and also its lows; that much is true regardless of whether you believe in Christ or not. So in the end, can we really say that living without the yoke of Christ is that much more pleasing than living with His yoke upon us?

In my own life, some of the happiest people I’ve ever known were those who were sold out for Christ. These were the men and women who truly gave everything they had to “buy the treasure” that is the Kingdom of Heaven. These people gave up much, but were happier than those who chose to reserve everything for themselves. Do the unbelievers – those who count the costs of following Jesus as too great – really come out better in this life?

I would say that the answer is “no.” Following Jesus requires sacrifice, but it comes with great joy and great abundance of life… even in this life. The unbelieving crowd often claims, “Christians are so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good.” They say, “Worrying about the afterlife is no way to live this life.”

Yet it is Believers who often prove to be the happiest, healthiest, most generous, and most impactful souls in the world. Jesus’ demand for obedience may seem to be the death of our own happiness, yet full submission to Him seems to also yield the greatest joy and pleasure we can hope to experience in this life.

In the end, following Jesus will prove costly. It may cost you success, promotions, friendships, easiness of life, and physical pleasure. It might even cost your very life.

But when the two options are weighed in the balance – the option of following and the option of not following – it becomes clear that one choice is a sham that results in neither the best this life has to offer, nor the next.

When you choose to follow Jesus, you are making nothing less than the most rational choice a human being can make. And you can rest assured that Christ – who has bought you with His blood – has only your best interests at heart.