Rediscovering the Cost of Discipleship
So, what do we know about the early church? We know the early church grew stronger through suffering, not weaker. That alone should challenge everything we think we know about following Jesus. In our modern Christian culture, suffering often feels like a foreign concept. For many believers, especially here in the West, Christianity is in many ways seen as a pathway to peace, success, comfort, and blessing. While there’s truth in the fact that the Gospel brings peace and eternal hope, Jesus never promised an easy life. What He promised was a cross.
When Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23), He wasn’t being poetic or symbolic. In first-century Judea, the cross was a death sentence. It was the Roman Empire’s chosen method for executing criminals. When Jesus spoke these words, He was inviting people to die, not just physically, but to their comfort, ambition, reputation, and control. He wasn’t selling a product or pitching an easy path to a better life. He was calling men and women to lay down everything and follow Him. The call of Jesus is not to a lifestyle of ease, but to a life of surrender.
The early church understood this. They embraced it. Paul told the believers in Philippi, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). That word “granted” means to be gifted or graced. Suffering wasn’t seen as a curse. It was an honor. It was a mark of true discipleship. Church history is filled with stories of men and women who saw suffering not as something to be avoided, but as a holy privilege.
When Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, stood on trial in 155 AD, the Romans told him they would spare his life if he denied Christ. But the old man stood firm. “Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong,” he said. “How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” He was burned alive. Consider Perpetua, a young noblewoman and new mother imprisoned in 203 AD for her faith. She refused to recant. From her prison cell, she wrote, “The dungeon became to me like a palace.” Her love for Christ turned chains into crowns and suffering into strength. These faithful believers were not fanatics; they were normal Christians. They simply believed what Jesus said. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, summed it up best when he said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Every time the church was crushed, it multiplied. Every time it was beaten down, it rose up stronger. Persecution didn’t break the church; it purified it.
Somewhere down the line, something happened. Now look at where we are today. In modern Western Christianity, suffering is often seen as a problem to solve rather than a tool God uses. Many preachers offer a gospel of therapy, self-help sermons, positive affirmations, promises of prosperity wrapped in biblical language but empty of biblical power. We’ve replaced the cross with comfort and holiness with hype. Church becomes a weekly pep rally, not a training ground for endurance. Our congregations often resemble spiritual hospitals where patients never heal rather than barracks preparing soldiers for war.
This creates a fragile faith. A faith that expects blessing without sacrifice, a faith of joy without mourning, a faith of resurrection without crucifixion. When hardship comes, many believers begin to question God’s goodness instead of standing firm in His Word. But the Bible never taught us to expect a pain-free life—quite the opposite. James tells us, “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3). Trials don’t just happen to us; they happen for us. They produce something eternal.
Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters around the world suffer deeply, and yet their faith burns hotter. Open Doors reports that over 365 million Christians live under severe persecution daily, and yet their worship is alive. Their gatherings are sacred, and their testimonies are bold. Why? Because pressure produces purity. Fire reveals what’s real. These believers know Christ in the furnace of affliction in ways many of us cannot yet comprehend.
History confirms this pattern again and again. The Waldensians thrived under medieval persecution. The Anabaptists grew while being hunted like criminals. The Puritans found spiritual depth in exile. The underground churches in Communist China exploded during the Cultural Revolution. Every time the church faces outward resistance, something holy rises up from within. A.W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” That’s not because God is cruel. It’s because suffering strips away illusions. It burns off the counterfeit. It reveals what is eternal and strengthens what remains.
Family, this is what Paul meant when he said, “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). There is a depth of intimacy with Christ that can only be found in the valley. There is a side of His heart that you only encounter when your own heart is breaking. There is resurrection power, but it always comes after death.
Saints, hear me. This doesn’t mean we reject blessings. Scripture tells us in 1 Timothy 6:17 that God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. But we must stop preaching a one-sided gospel. A gospel that promotes breakthrough without brokenness, crowns without crosses, inheritance without obedience, and revival without repentance is not the Gospel of Christ; it’s a counterfeit. It fills seats but empties souls. It comforts the flesh while neglecting the cross. Jesus didn’t die to create fans or your personal ministry financial supporters, He called us to be followers, and followers must carry a cross.
The ekklesia is not called to produce consumer-minded followers who crave blessings but reject sacrifice. We’re called to raise up disciples, men and women forged in fire, not pampered in comfort. That cannot be done in a classroom of thirty people or from behind the pulpit. You have to do life with people, period, and that will get messy at times. And disciples must learn to suffer well. Suffering doesn’t destroy true faith; it refines it. There is no crown without a cross.
Son, daughter, until we stop feeding the appetite for comfort and start cultivating endurance, we’ll keep producing shallow faith that can’t stand the test. But God is raising a remnant in this hour. People who don’t flinch in the fire and don’t run when it costs them something. They follow the Lamb, not the crowd. That’s the cost of real discipleship, and it’s time we preach it again.
I believe we are entering a season, especially in the West, where the cost of following Christ will only increase. Cultural rejection. Job loss. Family tension. Social persecution and possibly worse. These are not distant threats; they are present realities and churches that have trained people to expect comfort will find themselves ill-prepared to stand in the coming fire. But there is hope, great hope. The same Holy Spirit who gave boldness to fishermen, strength to martyrs, and courage to reformers is with us now.
The early church conquered an empire not by escaping suffering, but by finding purpose in it. They didn’t just survive persecution; they thrived in it. Why? Because they understood something we must rediscover; God’s power is made perfect in weakness. His glory is revealed not just on mountaintops but in prison cells, gas stations, coffee shops, hospital rooms, and dark valleys.
Beloved, this is the hour to recover the theology of the cross. To preach not only the love of God but the Lordship of Christ. To teach people not only how to receive from God but how to endure with Him. The cost of discipleship is high, but the reward is higher. In the days ahead, may we not run from the fire, but walk through it with Christ beside us.
Because He is worth it.
Sources:
Scripture References: Luke 9:23; Philippians 1:29, 3:10; James 1:2-3; 1 Timothy 6:17; 2 Corinthians 12:9
Early Church Sources: The Martyrdom of Polycarp; The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas; Writings of Tertullian
Modern Works: A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship; Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ; Open Doors USA Reports
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