The Cost of Being a DiscipleMy Understanding: Jesus began this speech with a hyperbole, i.e. a “deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect” (Encarta). His statement concerning hating one’s family members as a requirement or a prerequisite for being his disciple cannot be taken literally to mean actual “hate.” Otherwise, Jesus would be contradicting his very nature of love and his teachings on the subject of loving one another as ourselves, which is the second greatest commandment. A hyperbole often compares two objects, which was the case in Jesus’ example of what it means to follow him as one of his disciples. He was contrasting our feelings and devotion for our family members with what our feelings (devotion; commitment; allegiance) should be toward him. He expressed this contrast through the use of a rhetorical device in order to have a persuasive effect on his listeners. If the choice ever came down to following the will of the family vs. following Jesus Christ and his will for our lives, Jesus Christ had to be the one we choose to follow, hands down.
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “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? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Not only are we to understand this in the context of our family members, but Jesus applied this principle to our own lives, as well. We must have this same attitude about our own lives, i.e. our love and commitment to Jesus Christ should be so strong that, by stark contrast, our feelings for our own selves should appear as hate. We obviously are not to hate ourselves, otherwise, again, it would refute his second greatest commandment of loving others as we love ourselves, yet, his point was clear. We cannot be his disciples if we are holding on to family ties, earthly treasures, and/or our own desires for our own lives to the point to where we would choose anyone or anything else above, or in place of our love, commitment, allegiance and faithfulness to Jesus Christ. He has to be number one in our lives. That is why he also said that “anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
So, what does it mean for us to carry our cross and to follow Jesus? Luke 9:23-25 says (Jesus speaking):
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”Clearly, to take up one’s cross means self-denial on a daily basis. It means losing our own self-will and self-desires in favor of Jesus Christ’s will and desire for our lives. If we try to hold on to our old lives, including holding on to relationships, possessions, our reputations, and our own personal goals for our lives over and above our commitment to Jesus Christ, to follow him wherever he leads us, then our lives become a huge contradiction, because we are professing to be followers of Christ, but in reality, we are followers of men, including self. That is why Jesus demands that his followers abandon their own selfish wills and desires and that they surrender their lives to Jesus Christ to do whatever he requires or desires of them, and that they don’t waver back and forth. The cross means death – death to self and death to conformity to the pattern of this world. For our lives to be saved, we must first of all die, and then we can be resurrected to new life in Jesus Christ.
Then, Jesus took his teaching a step further. Not only does being his disciple mean death to ourselves and our old lives, but it is essential that we understand this upfront. In other words, many teachers of the gospel today are giving a watered-down presentation of the gospel message. They are leaving out the fact that we must repent or perish. We must die to our old lives. We must leave everything, i.e. we must be willing to give up anything and everything in order to follow Jesus Christ, first of all in our hearts by surrendering all to Jesus, and then literally, as God leads that direction. Many are even going so far as to tell their listeners that repentance and obedience to Jesus Christ are not necessary for salvation and that Jesus Christ is pleased with you no matter what you do. Yet, Jesus makes it clear that we must understand the cost of following him before we make the commitment, lest we fall by the wayside because we thought we had signed up for the easy life.
The people of Jesus day understood the meaning of Jesus’ words. They understood the meaning of the cross, for they had seen many people crucified in this way. They knew that believing in Jesus Christ would most likely make them hated, rejected, abandoned, ostracized, and even killed for their faith in Jesus Christ, even by family members, which is why Jesus spoke to them in such strong terms concerning their commitments to family vs. their commitment to him. They had to be willing to have their families totally reject them. They had to understand the cost of following Jesus. And, we need to tell people what it truly means to follow Jesus, too. We need to stop soft-pedaling the gospel, thinking that somehow we are doing people a favor by making belief in Jesus Christ more inviting and palatable. We need to tell people the truth, because if they don’t understand the cost of truly following Jesus Christ, chances are they will follow a false hope all the way to hell.
Jesus used the illustration of salt losing its saltiness for a reason here. And, he was tying this illustration of salt losing its saltiness together with what he had just said previously concerning the cost of being one of his disciples. Salt is used as a food seasoning and as a food preservative. Salt is also something that adds taste, flavor, or liveliness to food. If it loses its saltiness, then it is no longer of value, i.e. it no longer serves its intended purpose. In the same way, as believers in Jesus Christ, we should have certain characteristics and traits that mark as us true believers in Jesus Christ, as is mentioned above – denial of self, death to self, death to living according to the pattern of this world, and surrender of everything one has, including relationships, our own rights and dreams, etc. to Jesus Christ. Then, we can be useful for his service as his true disciples. Yet, if we lack these characteristic traits of what it means to truly follow Jesus Christ, then we are of no use to Christ Jesus in his kingdom work because we are still holding on to our old lives.
So, what’s the bottom line? We need to understand upfront what it truly means to be a follower and a disciple of Jesus Christ, i.e. we need to know and comprehend the cost of following Jesus Christ with our lives in believing faith that begins and continues daily with repentance and complete surrender and total commitment of our lives to Jesus Christ, being willing to suffer as he suffered, to be rejected as he was rejected, and to follow him wherever he leads us, even if it means following him to our actual physical deaths for our faith in Jesus Christ. Then, once we have counted the cost of being his disciple, we need to willfully choose Christ over everyone and everything else in our lives in total abandonment to him and to his will for our lives. We must daily die to our own self will, and daily make a conscious choice of the will to surrender all to Jesus Christ and to follow him wherever he leads us, holding nothing back.
When this is our understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and/or when we are willing to have this kind of relationship with Jesus Christ, then, we can pray this prayer in this song with complete sincerity of heart in asking the Lord Jesus to lead us, to open our hearts to him, and for him to be the Lord of our lives.
Jesus, Lead Me / An Original Work / July 22, 2011
Jesus, lead me all the way.
Be my hope and be my stay.
Gently lead me where I should go,
So Your Spirit, I want to know.
Open up my heart to You.
Fill me with Your love and truth.
Make my heart want to obey.
Be my Lord today. Gently lead alway.
Jesus, lover of my soul,
Cleanse my heart, and make me whole;
Be transformed in my heart today,
As I turn from my sin and pray.
Make Your will known to my heart.
May I not from You depart.
How I long to hear You now,
As I humbly bow. Jesus, hear me now.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
Link to song
No comments:
Post a Comment