Luke 14:26 NLT “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.” (emphasis mine)
Whoa! I must hate everyone else by comparison? I thought God is Love; Jesus is Love. Jesus loved everyone!
“… otherwise you cannot be my disciple.”
Those are some pretty heavy words. I don’t ever want to be told I cannot be His disciple. There are no half-hearted attempts that count. This discipleship thing is significant, it is real, and it has costs. Verse 28 begins with “But don’t begin until you count the cost…” It costs to follow Him. It is very expensive. It costs a lot. It costs everything.
There are costs in putting Jesus so far first that – in comparison – you hate everything else. I remember in high school being on the volunteer fire department. I went to a training class one Saturday in the middle of the summer in Texas. It must have been 112 in the shade. By any standards, it was HOT! It didn’t matter if it was a humid heat or a dry heat. It was HOT!
During these training exercises, the facility had a two story house structure built out of cynder blocks. They would put flamable furniture and hay bales in the house and ignite them and we would don our fireproof coats and protective gear and go into the structure and learn the right ways to put out fires.
The point of this story is that when I came out from putting out the fire on the second story, I took off all my fire gear. It was so hot inside that house that when I removed my gear, I literally got chills I was so cold in the 112 degree summer heat.
While it’s not a perfect comparison, it does give some context to this verse. I love my wife more than any human being on earth and I love my kids almost as much. You could say that my love for them is HOT by anyone’s measure. But Jesus is saying that my love for Him should be so much “hotter” that all my other relationships should feel cold, like that Texas heat after coming out of a burning building.
So what could it cost me? For those around us who don’t understand, it could cost friendships. We could be ridiculed. We could be inconvenienced. We could suffer loss financially, physically, emotionally. Some could die – literally – for the sake of Jesus. Some of us could have to turn our backs on everything we knew, every comfort we have, everything we enjoy to follow Him to some dark and hard place. It could cost A LOT.
Luke 14:33 NLT “So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.“
Our cars, our Juicy Couture purses, our sports, our cheerleader competitions, our friends, our bank accounts, our investments, our security, our grades. Whatever those things are that bring us the most pleasure in life, Jesus says we have to give them up to be his disciple. Our appearance, our shoes, our jerseys, our clothes, our guitars, our pianos, our jobs, our positions, our hobbies, our status, our children’s hobbies, our houses, our kids schools, our location, our foods, our wines… whatever it is, it all has to be emotionally given up.
And it’s not just the physical “stuff” of life. Jesus asks us to give up our rights, our expectations, our will, our wants, our needs, our desires, our duties, our ownership, our rules, our way of doing things, our rituals, our habits, our clubs, our associations… you get the point. We’ve got to give it ALL up.
When we’ve emotionally given up all that we have and everything we are, it’s no big deal if Jesus asks us to give it up or give it away physically.
This is counting the cost. All or nothing. Following Jesus isn’t a $0.00 down, $199/month lease for two years. It’s all or nothing.
Galatians 2:20 ESV “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
If you’ve been reading my posts for long, you know this is my life verse. It always seems to come back to this verse for me. I am dead. Jesus is alive.
Running After Papa…