The Costly Call: When Jesus Demands Everything

There's something deeply unsettling about a God who heals with a touch yet demands we surrender everything. It's the paradox at the heart of Christianity—a Savior whose compassion knows no bounds, yet whose call to follow Him leaves no room for comfortable Christianity.

The Touch That Changes Everything
Picture a common woman lying in bed, fever ravaging her body. In first-century Palestine, what we might dismiss as a minor illness could easily become a death sentence. No antibiotics. No fever reducers. Just a body fighting alone against an invisible enemy.

Then Jesus enters the room.

He sees her—not with a casual glance, but with the kind of seeing that penetrates to the soul. And He does something remarkable: He touches her hand. Instantly, the fever vanishes. But here's what stops us in our tracks: she doesn't spend the next week recovering, gradually regaining her strength. She immediately gets up and begins to serve.

This is where the story becomes uncomfortably personal. If service is the proof of healing, how does it stand with us? When Christ has healed us from the leprosy of sin, has our response been one of immediate, joyful service? Or have we accepted His grace while keeping our distance from His demands?

The Link Between Sickness and Sin
The Gospel of Matthew presents three consecutive miracles—a leper cleansed, a centurion's servant healed, and Peter's mother-in-law restored. Each healing reveals Jesus's authority over creation, over disease, over the very forces that hold humanity captive. But there's something deeper happening here.

Isaiah 53:4-5 prophesied centuries before: "He himself bore our sicknesses and carried our pains...He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our iniquities...by his wounds we are healed."

Every cold we catch, every cancer diagnosis, every natural disaster—they're all ripples from the fall, echoes of sin's devastating entry into God's perfect creation. This doesn't mean your specific illness is punishment for a specific sin. Rather, all sickness exists because sin corrupted everything.

Here's the beautiful tension: when we trust Christ, we're immediately healed from sin's condemnation. Yet we still battle sin daily. Similarly, Christ's atonement guarantees ultimate healing from all sickness, but we still get sick in this life. The physical healings Jesus performed were glimpses—previews of the coming kingdom where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more death.

We live between the "already" and the "not yet." Already forgiven, not yet perfected. Already healed in principle, not yet experiencing the fullness of that healing.

When Foxes Have More Than the Son of God
Just when the crowd is gathering, amazed by Jesus's miraculous power, a scribe approaches. Scribes were the religious elite, the educated class who copied and interpreted Scripture. This man makes a bold declaration: "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."

It sounds impressive. It sounds committed. But Jesus sees past the words to the heart.

His response cuts through every comfortable notion of what it means to follow Him: "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Jesus was literally homeless. The Creator of the universe owned nothing but the clothes on His back. He's not demanding that every follower be homeless, but He is demanding something far more challenging: Are you willing to give up whatever it costs to follow Me?

The Danger of Cheap Grace
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who stood against Nazi evil and ultimately paid with his life, coined a phrase that haunts comfortable Christianity: "cheap grace."

Cheap grace wants forgiveness without repentance. It wants baptism without church discipline. It wants communion without confession. It wants absolution without personal cost. In modern terms, it's casual Christianity—claiming Christ's benefits while avoiding His lordship.

But costly grace? That's the treasure in the field worth selling everything to obtain. It's the disciples dropping their nets the moment Jesus said, "Follow me." It's the woman who broke her expensive perfume—perhaps her life savings—to anoint Jesus's feet, weeping as she served Him.

The difference between cheap and costly grace isn't about earning salvation. It's about the response of a heart that truly understands how much it's been forgiven.

The Hardest Saying
Another disciple approaches Jesus with what seems like a reasonable request: "Lord, first let me go bury my father."

Jesus's response sounds harsh to modern ears: "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Understanding the cultural context changes everything. "Burying my father" was a colloquial expression meaning "let me wait around until my father dies and I receive my inheritance." The man's father wasn't on his deathbed; this was about prioritizing financial security over immediate obedience.

Jesus isn't dismissing the importance of honoring parents—He repeatedly upheld that command. He's demolishing the idol of comfort, security, and delayed obedience.

In another passage, Jesus says something even more startling: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

This isn't a call to literal hatred. It's a call to such supreme love for Christ that all other loves—even the most precious human relationships—look like hatred by comparison.

The Question That Remains
Matthew leaves these two stories unfinished. We don't know if the scribe followed Jesus into homelessness. We don't know if the disciple chose inheritance over immediacy.

The unfinished nature of these accounts isn't an accident. It's an invitation. The question hangs in the air, waiting for each of us to answer: How will you respond to Jesus's call?

He Is No Fool
Jim Elliott, the young missionary who was speared to death by the very tribe he was trying to reach with the gospel, wrote in his journal: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose."

We can't keep our lives anyway. We grasp at them, acting like we have control, but every breath is borrowed. The only question is whether we'll spend those breaths on temporary comfort or eternal purpose.

The same Jesus who touched the feverish woman with healing compassion is the Jesus who demands complete allegiance. His authority is absolute. His compassion is boundless. And His call is costly.

May our trust in Him be without borders.