One of the common reasons that people give for not trusting and following Christ is that they will get around to it someday in the future. I had a close friend in high school that confided in me that he expected to follow Christ someday, but wanted to enjoy the revelry of college and young adulthood first.

People with this mindset apparently see following Christ as inevitable but also something that can safely be delayed. This, of course, is not reality. To them, their approach must seem like a compromise. They aren't denying the need to ultimately trust Christ, they just deny its immediacy and even relevance today. To them it must appear as something you do before you die, like obtain life insurance and prepare a will.

I believe that what they are wrestling with, consciously or not, is what Jesus was confronting when he said to his disciples; "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" - Matt. 16.24-26

The battle really seems to about the desire of the individual to live their own life, on their own terms, under their own control. Jesus permits mankind to live in this manner, but also makes it clear that this approach to life is incompatible with being a disciple of Christ.

To the person that is putting off trusting Christ there is no willingness to "deny themselves" certain experiences that they deem as desirable.

There is no willingness to "take up their cross" - that is, to willingly endure the suffering associated with fulfilling God's plan.

They must feel that they need to save their own lives? Save it from whom? Jesus, apparently.

The prospect of losing their life and it's potential for the sake of Jesus is not a desirable outcome.

The warning against forfeiting their own soul is pushed off onto some future date and something that they can avoid with a later-in-life or deathbed conversion. They don't understand that the warning against forfeiting your soul applies to the daily soul-polluting effects of a self-centered, narcissistic life of pleasing yourself.

Putting off following Christ could be compared to putting off getting in shape. The purpose of getting fit is not so that you can look good at your funeral or fit in your coffin. The purpose of getting in shape is to improve the quality of your life NOW. The same is true with following Christ. The purpose of salvation is not simply to save you from a Christ-less eternity in conscious torment, but also to improve the quality of your life NOW.

If a person were able to successfully delay following Christ only to trust Him with a last-second deathbed conversion, this would not be considered "lucky". It would be considered a tragedy avoided, yet a life wasted.

A life that could have been dedicated to advancing God's kingdom was spent in meaningless pursuits. A life that could have been dedicated to serving others was wasted on self-serving. A life that could have left a legacy of lasting change forfeited to empty pleasures because the pleasures couldn't be forfeited to Christ.

To delay following Christ in favor of living your own life makes a person not worthy of Christ; "Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me." - Matt. 10.38.

If Jesus is real enough for you to trust someday, He is real enough for you to trust today. If He's worth spending eternity with, He's worth spending the present with. Delaying you response to God's work in your life will make your heart hard and dull. Resist that soul-numbing effects of delaying your decision to follow Christ. Save you soul and follow Him today!