Have You Counted the Cost To Become a Disciple of Jesus? Is He worth it?

 

I've had a lot of time to reflect on the consequences of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. God has really challenged me to discern what I believe about some of Christ's discourse in the Bible. Add to that, I am amazed at the questions that have emerged in my spirit regarding the effects Charlie's life and death have had on Believers, skeptics,  and the Church. And as I look at the world today, and the growing animosity towards Christians and our faith, I am certain that it is more important today, than ever, that we are firmly committed to our discipleship.

First of all, let's establish what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. In the Greek language, the word used is Mathētēs, "a learner", from the root word math, indicating "thought accompanied by endeavor". I want you to remember that phrase. I'm going to return to it later. We can apply the following descriptors to Jesus's twelve Disciples in the New Testament. If we look at their example, they were described as "abiding" [staying] in His Word. They believed upon Him and confessed Him. They were not only pupils, but adherents [supporters, defenders, devotees]. And perhaps, most importantly, they were spoken of as imitators of their teacher. 

We know of the twelve disciples within His inner circle, but remember that Jesus also  appointed and sent out 72 [or 70, depending on which version of the Bible you are reading] to go before Him to spread His teachings that the Kingdom of God was near. We know that by the end of His ministry, only the original twelve [minus Judas] were still with Him. The rest had deserted Him. Many had avowed their allegiance to Him, but only a dozen were willing to pay the cost. He promised long, lonely days on the road, with no place to call home; they had to be willing to leave obligations to family and loved ones if they were to imitate Him. The cost was steep, and self-denial and suffering was to be their lot. 

In Luke 9:23, Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me". I want to make sure you understand the seriousness of that statement. When Jesus used the terminology of "taking up one's cross", He didn't mean our twenty-first century interpretation of suffering from some lightweight burden such as a bad relationship with your parents or spouse; a job you hate; high blood pressure, or some other annoying difficulty in your life. To the people He was addressing, "the cross" meant one thing: death by crucifixion. It was the maximum amount of shame, humiliation, and torture that the Roman government could devise. Victims would literally carry the instrument of their own torture and death.

Jesus made it very clear that any one who does not renounce all that he has [family, home, money, reputation, pride] cannot be His disciple [Luke 14:33]. All of that belongs to this world. Among what He offers His true disciples is tribulation, because He suffered tribulation. BUT, He also offers us [perfect] peace in Him. We can expect tribulation, distress, and suffering in this world. But He reminds us that He has overcome the world! Hallelujah! And so shall we if we can remain confidant, undaunted, and filled with the joy of His promise of everlasting life in His Father's Heavenly Kingdom! So, I ask you ... If you call yourself a disciple of Christ, have you counted the cost? Is He worth it?  

Let me, once again, share the story of a man who counted the cost and was willing to pay the price. I have returned time and again to the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor during the rise of the Nazi regime in WW2 Germany. He became alarmed as he witnessed the German State Church acquiescing to Hitler's anti-Jewish propaganda, demanding that Jews not be allowed to worship in Christian churches. He increasingly saw the Church compromising the Bible's demands of obedience to Jesus in favor of meeting the requirements of German society and the Third Reich. His spirit was in turmoil as he began to witness the cheapening of the power of the Gospel message, while obedience to the Living Christ was being buried and lost to religious formulas and rituals. 

In fact, one of the most defining quotes of Bonhoeffer is in regards to the distinction he makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. According to Dietrich, "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."  In today's world, do Western Christians give discipleship any of this thought, at all? Do they contemplate the cost, or even realize that there should be a cost for something so valuable?

Well, we are told by our Savior that it is the lot of a true Disciple! "If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master'. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My Word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of My Name, because they do not know Him who sent Me...".

As I finish up this post, I want to return to that earlier phrase I wrote ... the root of the Greek word for "disciple", meaning "thought accompanied by endeavor". It takes some serious thought on our part to decide to become a disciple of Christ, don't you agree? We must first count the cost, and if we have decided to follow Christ, we must imitate His work and his labor in the harvest of souls. We must be willing to pay the price of death to remain in His service. Are American Christians willing to do that? Or are they counting on getting "Raptured" out of here, with no pain, self-denial, or sacrifice.

Because I will tell you that Christians around the world are in the cross hairs of those who hate our faith and our Savior! In Nigeria alone, between 2019 and 2023, nearly 17,000 Christians have been reported killed; 7,000 victims in just the first seven months of 2025. According to Intersociety, the International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (located in Eastern Nigeria), at least 52,250 have been brutally murdered over the past 14 years. This is just the tip of the iceberg. And according to Open Doors' World Watch List, more than 380 million Christians suffer very high or extreme levels of persecution. Christians have been targeted primarily in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; but Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Columbia are now added to the Watch List. With the increase in political and ethnic rhetoric and violence in our own nation, it's not hard to see that religious persecution could easily be coming to us, as well. Jesus says it will!

But rather than live in fear, let us walk in the truth and strength of our Christian faith. Let us become true Christian disciples, drawing strength from Jesus's promises that He is with us. And we must lean on one another in community, encouraging each other as we face the persecution and trying times together. God has given us His Word as the foundation (and weapon) to face persecution with boldness and courage. Let us pray for our Christian Brothers and Sisters in Nigeria and around the world, and join with them in the Spirit, as they face their trials, even unto death. 

1 Peter 2:21     For [as a Believer] you have been called for this purpose, since Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you may follow in His footsteps.  

What Is Christo-Facism?

Christo-Facism ... is this a new term for you, as it was for me? I had to do a little digging to find out what it means and why it is a dangerous label to be tossed around. When asking the internet, What is Christo-Facism, you will get a variety of definitions that all come from a term coined by German liberation theology proponent, Dorothee Steffensky-Solle. The next obvious question is what is liberation theology? Here is the Wikipedia definition: Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". In other contexts, it addresses other forms of inequality, such as race or caste.

So, if I am understanding correctly, Christo-Facism appears to align [at least in some fashion] with the political theory of Social Justice. Now, I know that term has many variations, as well, among them Jesus's Biblical exhortation to care for the poor, the fatherless, the widows, and the sojourners. But this admonition by our Lord to care "for the least of these" is directed to the individual believer, and I do not believe it is meant to be applied as a contemporary, secular and corporate [group] ideology for the masses of society. 

Another aspect of the Biblical worldview and understanding of social justice is that Jesus never says wealth is evil, as the secular/political notion of social justice claims. On the contrary, much can be done for the Kingdom of God when one has been blessed with the financial means to rightly steward godly-obtained wealth for the good of people. When one is aligned with the Spirit of God, you are able to discern how to give, who to give to, and where to wisely bless others by the redistribution of the wealth which God has given you. But we seem to have entered an age where a Biblical worldview has been supplanted with a "government knows best" system who decides how much wealth you can keep and where it will be allocated.

And we cannot go further with this discussion on Christo-Facism without considering the current meaning of the word Fascism. Historically, I think of Hitler, and the Wikipedia explanation of Fascism ... authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social [and racial] hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race. 

But, now, with Jesus and God being systemically removed from the heart of our national conscience, we find that the concepts of Christian and Fascism are combined to form a new definition that reflects a revisionist order seeking the strong regimentation of society and the economy. This revision has created the term Christo-Facism to represent [according to the Urban Dictionary] "an evangelical, semi-theocratical movement or temperament of Americans who stand against abortion, sexual education, homosexuality, science, anti-Zionism, and the separation of church and state... It's a pejorative term that inherently accuses its object of disloyalty to democracy".  Therefore, we Christians who are pro-life; who are for protecting our children from sexual exploitation; who believe God's covenant of marriage is between a man and a woman; who believe that science is not separate from God's creation; and who believe in the Biblical identity of Zion have now become "a threat to democracy". 

Not only are we described as enemies of democracy, but we are perceived as opportunists who only participate in the political arena when our Biblical worldview of moral issues is supported. We are painted with a broad brush as indifferent and apathetic when it comes to the issues that affect the nation as a whole, such as the economy and national security -- which is patently discriminatory. Then this view is carried to its [illogical] conclusion that Christians are proponents of extreme far-right Fascism, which equals social inequality, racism, mysogynism, homophobia, hate speech, nationalism, etc. And this is how Christo-Fascism was born. 

Make no mistake, I am not naive enough to think that there aren't Christians who fit this description, just as there are members of every social group that are fundamentalists for their social causes. But it is unjust to categorize any entire class of people in general terms, without specific cause or attention to individual variations.

And by stereotyping an entire group of people as Christo-Fascists there is an unrighteous consequence of such deliberation ... it becomes the weaponization of language and words against the believer who follows in the footsteps of Christ. The ultimate goal is to dehumanize Christians and remove their positive human qualities and characteristics. But should we be surprised to see this happening? Does not the Bible tell us that Christians will become persecuted as the world careens towards the final judgment of mankind? Let us join together in fervent prayer that this latest attempt by the Anti-Christ spirit to eliminate the Christian influence will be defeated and conquered, in the Mighty Name of Jesus! We cannot continue to go down this troubling road without causing irreparable damage to the heart and soul of our nation.

#endtimespersecution #christofacism #christianpersecution #understandingchristofacism

Matthew 5:11   Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account.

 

How The God-Shaped Hole In Our Culture Birthed Wokeism & Will It Lead to Religious Persecution?

As so often happens when I'm praying and listening for the Lord to show me what I should write about, I will receive a thought and then find myself working backwards to a surprisingly different concept for the post. At the time it appears incompatible with the original idea, and then the Holy Spirit starts connecting the dots for me, and I begin seeing how they are truly connected.

This time, the Lord put it on my heart to contemplate how wokeism has affected our culture; specifically in terms of the absence of God. And that led to how this social philosophy could lead to religious persecution if we do not remain alert to the tactics of our spiritual Enemy.

Religious persecution is a topic that I have written about since I began this blog 11 years ago. At that time, the world was focused on the growing emergence of Sharia Law across the globe and the consequences of those who did not bow down to the strict rules of worshiping that god -- and that god only. But in the America of 2012 we were steeped in our national normalcy bias ... nothing like that would ever happen here! Here in America, we are free to worship whomever we wish, and it's even written in our country's Constitution, right? We don't have a thing to worry about!

But we've been lulled into complacency over at least the last half-century. There have always been Americans that didn't adopt faith in God as a guiding principle in their lives, but there didn't seem to be rancor and malice towards those who did. Then, along came Madalyn Murray O'Hair, an atheist who protested the reading of the Bible and any form of prayer in our public schools. The US Supreme Court agreed with her, and school-sponsored prayer was declared unconstitutional. Constitutionally protected Atheism would result in a spiritual door that was opened by that legal decision, and Satan took advantage of it.

With that one ruling, the Enemy of God found many who were willing to change their definition of "religion". Those who rejected Jehovah God of the Bible found faith in a social philosophy known as Secular Humanism. Instead of believing in a Supernatural God who created the Universe and everything in it; who created us with a purpose according to His will, secular humanists doubt this Biblical worldview [and ultimately deny it] in favor of believing in the greater ability of humans to make this earth a better place and to enact justice, and a safer, more pleasant world. Rather than prayer and a belief in a supernatural God that can heal our diseases and lead us in a supernatural spiritual relationship to make moral decisions for the good of mankind, secular humanists choose to rely on science, man-made social policies, and a collective moral relativism to ensure that the world is equitable and fair. After all, they tell themselves, why would you want to believe in a "God" who can't do a better job than rational, intelligent men can?

And that moral relativism? It has led us directly to this generation's culture of wokeism. Moral relativists believe that different values exist among different people and cultures, therefore morals are relative to different people --- there is no absolute Truth (as in what God has established in His Ten Commandments); only your truth as it pertains to your personal experience. The bottom line is that each of us gets to choose what is true for ourselves.

But now we have moved beyond Atheism, Secular Humanism, and Moral Relativism to Wokeism. Like the social philosophies before it, Wokeism has become its own religion to those who reject the One True God. This movement, like those who came before it, presents itself as humane and compassionate, just and virtuous; and anyone who disagrees with its disciples is to be eliminated from the cultural dialogue. The Enemy has hijacked any moral sense of ethics, and has taken the anti-God argument to new levels. Now, it's not enough to disagree with Christians, but it's time [wokeists declare] that Biblical values be condemned as oppressive and enslaving. Faith and belief in the statutes of the One True God is a power structure that enslaves. This structure must be dismantled to make way for a more "enlightened" alternative interpretation for what society needs to perpetuate relative truth, social justice, and the newest buzz word, equity.

So, where will this lead? Atheism, Secular Humanism, Moral Relativism, and now Wokeism have all tried to accomplish the same thing ... fill that hole of human need that God once occupied. While the adherents of Wokeism see themselves as inherently more just and compassionate than "judgmental" Christians, they fail to see the most important fundamental difference ... the God of Christianity sees all men through the same lens. He created them and all are worthy to be redeemed. The religion of Wokeism attributes a person's "redeemability" based on their group identity. The color of your skin or your gender, or your particular political identity matter.

The Christian identity is based on a relationship with God, the Father, and mercy, goodness, and love are its hallmarks and its goals. But power is the goal in the religion of Wokeism, because power is how they believe corrupt structures are torn down. Therefore, the definition of justice becomes whatever it takes to destroy the structure. And if in the process, people are harmed, then that is the cost of fulfilling the goal. But remember the saying, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". 

It then follows to ask this question ... will this latest social philosophy [that exists to fill the vacuum vacated by kicking God out of our culture] grow into the final attempt by Satan to destroy God's redemptive plan for mankind? Are we getting close to the religious persecution here in America that Christians around the rest of the world have been experiencing for some time? And is our comfortable, easy, casual American faith equipped to endure the persecution of which the Bible speaks? 

I know that this country's progression from "founded in faith" to the denial of God is nothing new. The Bible is full of generations that abandoned God and suffered the consequences of their repudiation. And there were always consequences. But the Bible also tells the stories of the faithful remnant that stayed true during the days when the Godless vacuums were filled with anti-Christ persecution and tyranny. Are you prepared to follow in the footsteps of the remnant?

My purpose is not to frighten or panic you; it is to prepare you. None of us know the day or time when the final and decisive Days of Evil will descend upon us, but this I do know: those who are not secure in their faith, or don't know what they believe, or who don't have the strength to stand in defense of faith in God, will quickly give in [and go along] to avoid persecution and oppression. 

Maybe Wokeism fades away, and we return to our Godly senses ... we must pray that it doesn't transform into the next stage that takes us further from God. I believe we're already seeing the consequences of how far down the rabbit hole we've already descended -- just in my lifetime! So, join me in praying that our faithful God hears the petitions of the True Church and defeats His Enemy one more time. Let us see His glory reign over this nation and the Gospel of His righteous Kingdom spread over the world!

#wokeism #secularhumanism #moralrelativism #abandoninggod #lossoffaith #endtimespersecution #endtimes #godlessvacuum

 2 Timothy 3:12   Yes, and those who decide to please Christ Jesus by living godly lives will suffer at the hands of those who hate Him.