Luke 14:25-35

Jesus spoke about what it meant to be His disciple. We need to be willing to leave behind our family and even our own self interests and make Him the utmost object of our love and attention. We also need to be ready for trials and hardships. The life of a Christian is not a pain-free life. Christ was despised by many and suffered at their hands. We should not expect better treatment than He had.

All of these things were said so that the people would know what was in store before they followed Him. It would not have been right for Him to do a bait-and-switch by saying everything would be great for those that followed Him just to let them find out later that it wasn't so. Likewise, when sharing with others about Christ and what He's done for us, we shouldn't sugar coat things to make it seem like the Christian life is a problem-free life. We all have problems. The difference as a follower of Christ is that we have Him to lean on to get us through whatever comes our way.