Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 128:1-2
I love You, Lord.
You are my strength,
my Rock, my Fortress, and my Saviour
my Shield, my Protector,
and my Place of safety.
I give myself to You afresh today. Amen.
Reading
If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. (v.26)
As Jesus’ delivered these words to the large crowds of people following Him, He was on His way to Jerusalem, knowing full well that He was on a mission to lay down His life for our salvation.
As He looked out at the crowd, I’m sure He saw that most (if not all) of them were convinced that He was headed to Jerusalem to take the throne of His ancestor David, and to reign as an earthly king over Israel. And that was why they were following Him so eagerly. I’m convinced that Jesus saw how few (if any) of them understood what it truly meant to be His disciple, and what it would cost them to truly follow Him.
Knowing this, Jesus spoke in a very vivid and quite shocking way. But He did so to be clear – to leave no one in any doubt as to the commitment required of His true disciples. This was His way of inviting each person in that crowd to weigh up the level of commitment required, and then to make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to continue following Him.
So let’s think about that too. To be a true follower of Jesus, and to be one who continues to follow all the way to the end, demands that we choose to love, honour and serve Jesus Christ in a way that is so high and so great and so absolute that every other love we have looks like hatred by comparison.
Let’s be clear: Jesus does not call us to hate anyone. This is a hyperbolic way of stating that we need to love Him that much more than we love anyone or anything else. And it’s not that He will reject us if we do not. It is simply that if our “highest love for Jesus” is not settled once and for all in our hearts, we will inevitably turn back from following Him when the cost begins to mount, or when someone we love more than we love Jesus urges us to turn back. And so we cannot and will not follow Him to the end if we have a higher love.
Will you choose to love Him most?
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will choose to love Jesus more than I love anyone or anything else.
Lord Jesus, I long to love You like this. Holy Spirit awaken a true and absolute love for Jesus in my heart. Amen.
Dave's Diary 