People will pay the Cost if they find it valuable.
One of my favorite books is Deitrich Bonhoffer’s, “The Cost of Discipleship.” In that book Bonhoffer says that grace if free but it should never be cheap. It’s the most valuable thing that we could ever have.
Now my comparison to Apple is no where near the value of Grace. But Apple stuff is not cheap. There are cheaper mp3 players. there are way cheaper laptops. But Apple knows that the people who really want their products will pay the price for them because they are worth it.
Discipleship needs to be worth it for people to buy in to the life of Christ. What are we offering people when they come to faith in Christ. Are we telling them that life will be easy? Are we telling them that everything is always going to work out. No, at least I hope not.
What we are inviting people to is grace and transformed lives. And that should be worth it. So we need to be living in grace and we need to be displaying transformed lives. If we have the exact same experience as non-believers, what do they care? They are not going to come flocking. But if we are inviting them to join us on the journey of faith and inviting them to live transformed lives. then that’s attractive, and that’s something different then their current experience.
When I was deciding to switch to a Mac, one of the biggest attractions was the different user experience. I’m less vulnerable to attack, things are constantly improving. The user experience is worth the cost of the computer because I know that It’s going to work. And It’s simpler. It’s a lot of fun too. Yeah I had a lot to learn before I felt really proficient with my mac, but it was worth learning.
And so when it comes to faith the cost of discipleship is everything we have and everything we are. And people will gladly pay the price, if it’s worth it. If they see the transformation.
JasonDeuman.com 