Compelled By Christ: The True Cost Of Following Jesus
Few phrases have haunted the church for decades like “cheap grace,” a term made famous by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his landmark work The Cost of Discipleship. And the more honestly we examine it, the more we are forced to ask whether it has taken root in our own lives.
Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as grace without price, grace without cost. He described it as the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession. Most pointedly, he called it grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, and grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.
True grace is free to us because Christ paid its price; but it certainly isn't cheap. The same Christ who freely saves us also calls us to follow Him, take up our cross, and die to ourselves.
So what does costly grace actually look like when it is lived out?
The Mindset of Christ
The apostle Peter gives us a framework in 1 Peter 4. He opens with a striking instruction: since Christ suffered in the flesh, believers are to arm themselves with the same way of thinking. The logic is direct. Christ did not sidestep suffering on the way to glory. He walked straight through it. And those who follow Him are called to the same orientation.
This is not a call to seek out misery for its own sake. It is a call to stop being surprised when obedience to God costs something. It is a call to stop negotiating with the world for a version of faith that offends no one and demands nothing.
Peter is describing a decisive break with the way of life that once governed us. The person who is willing to suffer rather than return to sin demonstrates that sin no longer rules his life as it once did. This is the nature of transformation.
It is not perfection. It is direction. When a person genuinely encounters Christ, something changes. The values shift. The motivations change. The standard by which decisions are made is no longer rooted in personal appetite or cultural approval, but in God's will.
Identity With The Cross
One of the most important truths of the Christian life is that following Christ means identifying with both His death and His resurrection. It is easy to celebrate the resurrection. It is far more challenging to identify with the cross.
Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that believers are buried with Christ in baptism, and that just as Christ rose from the dead, so too must we rise to walk in newness of life. The death that precedes that resurrection is not merely symbolic. It is the death of the old self, the old patterns, the old allegiances. It is the mortification of everything that once held us captive to sin. And it is in that death that genuine freedom is found.
The Christian life is therefore not simply about receiving forgiveness while continuing to live as we always have. It is about being united with Christ in His death and resurrection—dying to the old life and learning to walk in the new.
This is precisely what Peter is describing. Suffering, hardship, and the difficulty of living in a broken world are not obstacles to faith. They are often the very circumstances in which faith is tested, strengthened, and displayed. They are experiences through which believers identify more deeply with what Christ accomplished for them.
The World Will Notice
Peter does not pretend that this kind of life will be welcomed by everyone. In fact, he is remarkably direct about the reaction it will provoke. He describes how those outside the faith are first surprised when believers no longer join them in the patterns of a life without God, and then how that surprise turns to criticism and hostility.
The reason is not difficult to understand. A life of genuine devotion to Christ implicitly rebukes those who have chosen a different path. The refusal to participate in what Peter calls the flood of debauchery is not perceived as indifference. It is perceived as judgment. And rather than examining that discomfort honestly, many people will redirect it as anger toward the one whose life prompted it.
This is why Peter reminds believers that judgment belongs to God. He is ready to judge the living and the dead. The believer's responsibility is not to avenge, retaliate, or compromise. The responsibility is obedience. God will handle the rest.
The Promise That Holds It All Together
The reason any of this is sustainable is the promise that anchors it. Peter writes that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead so that though they were judged in the flesh the way all people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.
This is the hope that makes costly discipleship worth every cost. It is the reason suffering does not have the last word. It is the reason the narrow road, as difficult as it is, leads somewhere worth going.
But there is something even deeper than simply enduring the cost: Christ Himself is worth it.
Paul said that the love of Christ compels us. That is the heart of Christian obedience. We do not follow Jesus merely because He has given us a list of commands. We follow Him because He loved us, gave Himself for us, and has become more valuable to us than the things we once lived for.
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Christ's invitation has never been an invitation to preserve our old lives while adding religion to them. It is an invitation to die—and then to live.
Disciples who turn away from cheap grace and embrace the real weight of following Jesus do not ultimately become burdened. They discover the freedom of no longer being enslaved to the things that once ruled them. And in that freedom, they become exactly what the world desperately needs to see.
Come and die. It is the only invitation that leads to life.
Bonhoeffer defined cheap grace as grace without price, grace without cost. He described it as the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without discipline, communion without confession. Most pointedly, he called it grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, and grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.
True grace is free to us because Christ paid its price; but it certainly isn't cheap. The same Christ who freely saves us also calls us to follow Him, take up our cross, and die to ourselves.
So what does costly grace actually look like when it is lived out?
The Mindset of Christ
The apostle Peter gives us a framework in 1 Peter 4. He opens with a striking instruction: since Christ suffered in the flesh, believers are to arm themselves with the same way of thinking. The logic is direct. Christ did not sidestep suffering on the way to glory. He walked straight through it. And those who follow Him are called to the same orientation.
This is not a call to seek out misery for its own sake. It is a call to stop being surprised when obedience to God costs something. It is a call to stop negotiating with the world for a version of faith that offends no one and demands nothing.
Peter is describing a decisive break with the way of life that once governed us. The person who is willing to suffer rather than return to sin demonstrates that sin no longer rules his life as it once did. This is the nature of transformation.
It is not perfection. It is direction. When a person genuinely encounters Christ, something changes. The values shift. The motivations change. The standard by which decisions are made is no longer rooted in personal appetite or cultural approval, but in God's will.
Identity With The Cross
One of the most important truths of the Christian life is that following Christ means identifying with both His death and His resurrection. It is easy to celebrate the resurrection. It is far more challenging to identify with the cross.
Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that believers are buried with Christ in baptism, and that just as Christ rose from the dead, so too must we rise to walk in newness of life. The death that precedes that resurrection is not merely symbolic. It is the death of the old self, the old patterns, the old allegiances. It is the mortification of everything that once held us captive to sin. And it is in that death that genuine freedom is found.
The Christian life is therefore not simply about receiving forgiveness while continuing to live as we always have. It is about being united with Christ in His death and resurrection—dying to the old life and learning to walk in the new.
This is precisely what Peter is describing. Suffering, hardship, and the difficulty of living in a broken world are not obstacles to faith. They are often the very circumstances in which faith is tested, strengthened, and displayed. They are experiences through which believers identify more deeply with what Christ accomplished for them.
The World Will Notice
Peter does not pretend that this kind of life will be welcomed by everyone. In fact, he is remarkably direct about the reaction it will provoke. He describes how those outside the faith are first surprised when believers no longer join them in the patterns of a life without God, and then how that surprise turns to criticism and hostility.
The reason is not difficult to understand. A life of genuine devotion to Christ implicitly rebukes those who have chosen a different path. The refusal to participate in what Peter calls the flood of debauchery is not perceived as indifference. It is perceived as judgment. And rather than examining that discomfort honestly, many people will redirect it as anger toward the one whose life prompted it.
This is why Peter reminds believers that judgment belongs to God. He is ready to judge the living and the dead. The believer's responsibility is not to avenge, retaliate, or compromise. The responsibility is obedience. God will handle the rest.
The Promise That Holds It All Together
The reason any of this is sustainable is the promise that anchors it. Peter writes that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead so that though they were judged in the flesh the way all people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.
This is the hope that makes costly discipleship worth every cost. It is the reason suffering does not have the last word. It is the reason the narrow road, as difficult as it is, leads somewhere worth going.
But there is something even deeper than simply enduring the cost: Christ Himself is worth it.
Paul said that the love of Christ compels us. That is the heart of Christian obedience. We do not follow Jesus merely because He has given us a list of commands. We follow Him because He loved us, gave Himself for us, and has become more valuable to us than the things we once lived for.
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Christ's invitation has never been an invitation to preserve our old lives while adding religion to them. It is an invitation to die—and then to live.
Disciples who turn away from cheap grace and embrace the real weight of following Jesus do not ultimately become burdened. They discover the freedom of no longer being enslaved to the things that once ruled them. And in that freedom, they become exactly what the world desperately needs to see.
Come and die. It is the only invitation that leads to life.