The third element in following Christ is submission. In one of Jesus’ most important sayings about discipleship, the Lord pictures discipleship as putting on a yoke. This suggests a number of things, but chiefly it suggests submission to Christ for work assigned. It is the picture of an animal yoked to others as well as to a farm implement for labor.

There is a defect, even a fatal defect, in the life of the church of Christ in our age: a lack of true discipleship. For the genuine Christian, discipleship means forsaking everything to follow Christ. But for many of today’s supposed Christians - perhaps the majority - it is the case that while there is much talk about Christ and even much furious activity that is supposed to be done in his name, there is actually very little following of Christ himself. And that means that in some circles, at least, there is very little genuine Christianity. Many who fervently call him "Lord, Lord" are not Christians (Matt. 7:21).

Remember how he taught his disciples: "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:28, 33). That is just what Jesus is enabling Peter to do here - to count the cost of being a disciple after God’s own heart. It will be very costly - costly unto death. At that point Peter had complete autonomy, complete independence. He was his own man. He was able to dress himself and go where he liked.