It can be much harder to live for Christ than die for him! Death is quick, and then you're there...but life, with its trials, tribulations, wearing grind, daily challenges, and the need to be there for him isn't nearly as simple.
And that's the thing he asks most of us...I know what it's like to find out you only have the clothes on your back. That's not as hard as it seems. But to look around you and realize how you've accumulated later and see the Spirit telling you that perhaps you have a bit of a problem with accumulating things that separate you from God, now that's much harder to deal with.
Sigh.