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When You Struggle to Surrender It All

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor and theologian who would eventually die at the hands of the Nazi regime, offered up one of the most sobering summaries of the Christian faith: “When Jesus bids a man to follow him, he bids him come and die.”

Jesus pointed out that to truly follow him, his disciples were to pick up a cross. We use crosses decoratively these days: We wear them as jewelry, put them on the walls in our houses, even have them tattooed on our bodies. But for those first disciples, the cross was anything but decorative. It was a symbol of torture. Wearing a cross as jewelry in the first century would have been as out of place as an African American wearing a decorative noose around his neck in the 19th century.

Bonhoeffer was right: The demands of Jesus are total. His call to follow isn’t an offer of a different way of life, but a call to give it all, even life itself. What kind of motive would make anyone follow a call like that? Mark 8:35–38 gives us three motivations:

1. God brings life through obedience.

Obedience to Jesus sometimes feels like death. But that feeling isn’t the end of the story. As Jesus put it, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). Obedience to God may feel like death, but the result is actually life.

The forgiveness you extend will come at a cost to you; it will feel like a death. But that “death” will restore a relationship and release you from the poison of bitterness.

The sinful relationship you walk away from will feel like a death. But that “death” will open up the possibility for a healthy, life-giving relationship for you and for that other person.

The financial sacrifice you make will force you to die to some of your comforts and your ambitions. But that “death” will yield life—not only through the ministries you support, but in your own heart as well.

Obedience to God is never easy. On many days, it will feel like the cost of the sacrifice is too great, that the only outcome is a kind of death. But if we could only see clearly, we’d realize that this is actually God’s instrument of life.

2. You can’t hold on to it anyway.

There’s a subtle logic behind Jesus’ words here: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?” (Mark 8:36–37). Whatever you’re holding onto now that keeps you from full surrender to Jesus—in the end, you simply can’t keep it.