Edwin Anthony O.

Mañas 9/25/19

Ms. Ballo Allo CF 11

Cost for following Jesus

There is a common misconception that following Jesus is an easy task, where

the moment you decide to become like Jesus your life will become easier and you will
receive tons of blessings in return presumably. In reality the path of following Christ is
harder than you can imagine, the verses Matthew 7:13-14 talks about how there are a
lot of people who try to follow Christ but only few truly becomes follower of Christ.
Following Jesus should be difficuly because God isn’t looking for fans who’s just
following for the sake of not going to hell, but He’s look for followers who are willing to
give up everything and put their faith in God.

The move “The end of the spear” gives us a real life example of the costs of
following Jesus. The missionaries in the movie wanted to share the gospel to the people
of the waodani, this is because the different waodani tribes are killing each other in
rapid numbers which was bringing them to the brink of extinction. The missionaries not
only had to learn the language to be able to share the gospel but be able to meet them
in person risking their lives greatly.

The missionaries such as Nate saint continued on to find the waodani’s and
supporting them by supplying goods and eventually bringing a team with him to
personally meet and record their encounters. Before all this, Nate knew the risk of
dying, this is an example of a cost of following Christ. It is our job to share God’s word to
all four corners of the world. He is willing to sacrifice his life, where he won’t be able to
see his family and watch his kid grow unlike other people. But because of his undying
desire to fulfill God’s command he continued on anyways.

During their encounter, it started off well seeing how the waodanis didn’t react
violently initially. But afterwards there was a miscommunication between the different
members resulting to a violent respsonse. The waodanis ended up attacking and killing
the missionaries. They had the means required to fight back such as guns, but they
chose not to instead because they knew the waodanis weren’t ready for heaven yet.
They chose to sacrifice their own lives trusting in their faith of God knowing that they’ll
eventually meet their creator than taking the life of another who’s never heard the
gospel.

As time went some of the family of the missionaries went and lived with the same
waodani tribes that killed their husbands. Instead they chose to forgive these people
and continued on to share the gospel and even helping them during the time of need
when they were attacked by a disease. The sacrifice of the men served a purpose in the
end, wherein dayumae was able to communicate with the tribe and share the gospel.
After everything was cleared up, when everyone knew the true story of what happened.
No one chose to take grudge or revenge upon the waodanis, instead they forgave and
even accepted them in their community. This is especially present with steve where he
knew that mincayani killed his father, and could’ve gotten revenge by spearing him
back. But instead he chose to forgive him and introduce him to the world outside his
tribe.

This goes to show that the life of a Christian is not an easy one. We will definitely
experience hardships that’ll test our faith and see if our foundation in Christ is strong
enough to withstand the shaking. We have to rebuke our old sinful ways and follow the
ways of Christ, we may have to completely change our outlook of life and go out of our
usual way of living, but this is the cost of following Jesus. The world will be against us,
but if we continue to keep our faith strong and follow Christ we will receive the eternal
salvation that we desire. The hardships we experience and the sacrifices we make in
this world is only temporary but the reward we receive in the afterlife is eternal. The
costs of following Jesus may be difficult but in the end our reward will outweigh anything
we’ve ever experienced in our life.