Jesus doesn’t do half measures. His perspective seems to be that you either do it or you don’t. You don’t do it half way.
Jesus is God represented in the flesh, represented as a human being. He was all-in and brought all of His deity to the earth in the form of a human.
He came to the earth to re-establish His Kingdom, with Jesus himself as the King. He purchased for God people from every tribe, nation, and language, and he purchased them not with money, but with his own blood. That is most certainly a sign of being all-in, to give yourself for others, especially others who have not only not loved you, but have shown disdain for you.
I could go on with examples, but suffice to say that Jesus calls us to have the same level of passion and commitment to him and his Kingdom as he did for us. Jesus was explaining this to the crowds that were following him. He said:
In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Luke 14:33
It is as if he was telling them, “You can’t just follow me around and say you’re my disciple. There is much more than that.”
Jesus had told his disciples that they must “hate” their father and mother, their brothers and sisters, their wives and children. Otherwise they cannot be his disciple. Are you prevented from following Jesus because of your family? You aren’t fit to be Jesus’s disciple, he says.
Jesus told his disciples that they must carry their cross and follow him. Are you prevented from following Jesus because you are afraid of being shamed by others for your association with him? Are you afraid of the possibility that you would be put to death because of your association with him? You aren’t fit to be Jesus’s disciple.
There is no half measure with which you can be Jesus’s disciple. Following him doesn’t mean just trying not to sin. It means that you go to do what he calls his disciples to do. You go to be the person that he calls you to be. This is the level of discipleship that Jesus calls us into. That is the Jesus in the Bible, and if we don’t understand this, and we don’t follow him in the way that he has called us to follow him, we won’t have a part with him. We won’t actually be his disciples.
God, help me – help all of us – to not only understand the cost of being a disciple, but even more, to truly be the disciple that you have called us to be. I pray that you won’t count us among the people who are just casually walking along, but those who have counted the cost and are willing to follow Jesus wherever he sends us, wherever he calls us to go. Do with us what you will, Lord. May you be glorified as a result of our lives and what we give to you.