Many Christians make the wrong assumption that since Christ paid the price for our salvation, the Christian life should be as easy as pie. This wrong thinking causes so many believers to fail in the most important pursuit of the Christian life:

Following Christ.

That said, why is following Christ so costly when our salvation is free? In this article, I hope to answer the often unspoken question among many believers: why is it so hard to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's a two-sided coin

Friends, we have to understand that our Christian walk is a two-sided coin. First, God saves us through Christ. Second, we follow Christ in obedience to God. The first part is God's, and the second is ours.

So many Christians make the wrong mistake of treating God as just a Healer, Comforter, Provider, Savior, Father, and Friend. We forget that He is God, He is King, He is Lord, He is Boss.

The wrong focus

So many Christians, when thinking about the Gospel, focus only on one side: what the Lord has done for us. We focus our attention on just one verse, perhaps the most widely known and memorized across the planet:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

It's true that God is good. In fact, so good that He was the one who paid for the ultimately high price of our salvation: the blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of what Christ our Lord has done, our salvation is free. And because it's free for all sinners, it's purely by grace:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Why is it so hard to follow Christ, then?

Now we move on to the second part, which is our part. Christ has shed His blood in atoning for us. He has saved us.

Now, it's our turn to respond in kind, and we do this by following Him.

Following Him, however, is not an easy thing to do. Whereas we just receive our salvation by grace through faith freely, following Christ will cost us everything that we are:

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25)

Following Christ will mean denying ourselves. It means recognizing that we are not our own anymore. Since Christ has already paid for us with His blood, we ought to realize that we don't own ourselves anymore. Our decisions and directions in life aren't ours to make anymore. Christ has the rights to us, and He owns us.

"Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

So why would following Christ be very hard and costly? It's because it requires that we die to ourselves. It requires us to surrender our will to Him. It requires nothing but total obedience from us.