{"id":37825,"date":"2020-11-20T13:07:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T13:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cost-of-discipleship-was-too-high\/"},"modified":"2020-11-20T13:07:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T13:07:00","slug":"cost-of-discipleship-was-too-high","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cost-of-discipleship-was-too-high\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of Discipleship Was Too High"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally known for his television series <em>Civilization<\/em>, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. He wrote, &ldquo;My whole being was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had known before.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>But the &quot;flood of grace&quot; as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So, he concluded, &quot;I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3557,3690,3793,3856,3920,3921,3977,3979,4088,4303,4749,4772,4811,5140,5302,5303],"tax_ctp_topics":[384,393,404],"class_list":["post-37825","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-change","tax_ctp_tags-conviction","tax_ctp_tags-discipleship","tax_ctp_tags-emotions","tax_ctp_tags-experience","tax_ctp_tags-experiencing-god","tax_ctp_tags-fear-of-death","tax_ctp_tags-fear-of-man","tax_ctp_tags-grace","tax_ctp_tags-joy","tax_ctp_tags-pursuing-sinners","tax_ctp_tags-rebellion","tax_ctp_tags-resistance","tax_ctp_tags-testing","tax_ctp_tags-worldliness","tax_ctp_tags-worldview"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Cost of Discipleship Was Too High - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/cost-of-discipleship-was-too-high\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cost of Discipleship Was Too High - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally known for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. 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