---
title: 'John Murray on the Cost of Discipleship'
type: post
author: 'R. Andrew Myers'
date: 2023-06-03
url: https://confessional.org/blog/2023-john-murray-on-the-cost-of-discipleship
---

# John Murray on the Cost of Discipleship

“My friends, we *don*'*t have to live*, but there’s something that we *must* do, and that is honor Christ. *His* glory, the demands of *his* kingdom, and the commitment that belongs to *him* as Lord and Savior, is a commitment that demands of us that we shall *never* compromise truth, justice, and honor for the sake of a livelihood or for the sake of our own worldly advancement.

Now, that’s the truth, and there it comes to us in a very concrete and practical and searching way: ‘If a man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.’ That means nothing less than this: if we are Christ’s disciples, we shall have to say in every concrete situation of our life, in every emergency in which we are placed, ‘Here is the gibbet for my execution, and it is the *only* alternative when the honor of Christ and loyalty to him demands it.’ Jesus is saying *nothing less* than that. Oh my friend, I say it with all tenderness, but I must say it as the ambassador of Christ: we don’t *have* to live, but we do *have* to be faithful to Christ. Otherwise, we are not his disciples.” - [**John Murray**](/authors/john-murray), “The Cost of Discipleship” in *Oh Death, Where is Thy Sting*?: *Collected Sermons* (2017), p. 182 \[not yet available on LCP\]