The Cost of Following Jesus: Why Obedience and Faith Cannot Be Separated
There is a quiet habit that has crept into modern Christianity, one that is far more dangerous than outright rebellion against God. It is the habit of redefining what Jesus actually says. Not rejecting his words, but softening them, qualifying them, and interpreting them until they no longer cost us anything. We have become remarkably skilled at inferring what Jesus really means rather than simply doing what he said.
This is not a new problem. Nearly a century ago, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer watched an entire nation convince itself that it was faithfully following Jesus while systematically ignoring the very words of Jesus. He called the result "cheap grace,” forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, and grace without discipleship. We are subtly redefining what Jesus means by love, by marriage, by family, by church. In our effort to make Christianity more appealing, more accessible, more relative to the world around us, we are teaching a negotiated Christianity that was never offered to us in the first place.
The Man Who Had Done Everything Right
In Mark 10:17-27, a man runs up to Jesus, falls on his knees, and asks the most important question a person can ask: what must I do to inherit eternal life? This was not a careless man. He was earnest, eager, and by his own account had kept the commandments since he was a boy. He was doing everything right. And yet Jesus looked at him with love and told him that one thing was missing. He was to sell everything he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus.
At that, the man's face fell. He walked away sad because he had great wealth.
It would be easy to look at this man with pity. He was so close. He had done so much. But there is something important to understand about what Jesus was actually asking. The goal was not the selling. The goal was the following. Complete surrender to Jesus was the destination, and releasing his grip on his possessions was the path that would get him there. Jesus was not issuing a universal command for voluntary poverty. He was identifying the one specific thing that stood between this particular man and total surrender. And that one thing revealed everything about the true condition of his heart.
Faith and Obedience Are Not Two Separate Things
Here is where much of modern Christianity gets tangled. We tend to think of faith and obedience as sequential, first you believe, and then, eventually, obedience follows as a kind of fruit. But this passage in Mark 10 challenges that comfortable sequence. Faith is only real when obedience is present. The two cannot be cleanly separated.
James 2:18 makes this plain, stating that genuine faith is demonstrated through deeds, not merely declared through words. Obedience is not simply the fruit of faith. It is the means by which faith is practiced and made visible. This is why it can be said that only the one who believes is obedient, and only the one who is obedient truly believes.
This does not mean that obedience earns salvation. Salvation has always been a matter of God's promise received by grace through faith. Even in the Old Testament, no one was saved by adherence to the law. It was always a promise given by God and received through faith. Obedience is a response to grace, not a means of earning it. But that response matters deeply, because the absence of obedience is a revealer that faith may not be as present as we think.
The Danger of Reinterpretation
When Jesus says "sell your goods," the temptation is to conclude that what he really means is to keep your goods quietly, to simply maintain an inward detachment from them. When Jesus says "do not be anxious," we tell ourselves he means to be free from anxiety in spirit while we continue to carry it in practice. When Jesus says "seek first the kingdom of God," we reason that we must of course seek all other things first in order to survive, and that what he really means is to keep the kingdom as our ultimate priority somewhere in the background.
In each case, we are not rejecting the words of Jesus. We are reinterpreting them until they no longer require anything of us. And in doing so, we walk away from him while believing we are walking with him.
Consider a simple illustration. If a father tells his child to go to bed, and the child reasons that what the father really wants is for him not to be tired, and that going outside to play would accomplish that just as well, no reasonable parent would accept that interpretation. The instructions were clear. The child simply did not want to obey it. We would not accept that kind of reasoning in any other area of life. Why do we accept it in our relationship with Jesus?
A Call to Simple-Minded Obedience
Jesus is not calling any of us primarily to an act. He is calling us to himself. The command to the rich young ruler was not ultimately about money. It was about whether this man would come and follow. Every call Jesus issues is, at its core, an invitation to come and follow him completely, holding nothing back.
Bonhoeffer wrote that when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. That is the cost of discipleship. It is not a negotiation. It is not a conversation about what you get to keep. It is a surrender of everything, trusting that what is gained in Christ is far greater than anything laid down.
The question worth sitting with today is this, is there something Jesus has clearly called you to do that you have been quietly reinterpreting? A relationship to restore, a habit to release, a step of obedience you have been postponing while telling yourself the timing is not right?
Jesus never invited us to interpret his commands until they fit our lives. He invited us to surrender our lives until they fit his commands.
The invitation is still open. Follow him.
