Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, “So and So tells me that he was one of our students." The teacher answered devastatingly, “He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.” There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student.
The word disciple means a learner, a student. Jesus continually calls people to be his disciples—his students. As there is a difference in attending lectures and being a student, so there is a difference in being a church member and being a disciple of Christ.
What does it take to be a disciple? Jesus said, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:37-39).
No one can do everything. We cannot go everywhere. We cannot do all things equally well. If we are to be a disciple of Christ, we must make up our minds that that is what we want and then pay the price. There is no other way.