“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

            Luke 14:26

This passage is yet another example of how the cost of discipleship can be difficult, even intolerable for some people. Jesus instructs us that in order for us to be His disciples, everything and everyone else in our lives must become secondary to Him. It doesn’t seem like we hear this truth being declared in our culture today. Perhaps that is because we live in a culture that is focused on itself. Life should be about me, my family, my ambitions, my feelings, and my rights. Everyone around me should consider me before making decisions. This kind of existence is the exact opposite of the Christian life yet it would appear that many who claim the name of Jesus approach life this way. Talk of surrendering one’s life to God and prioritizing Him above all else, has become rare. 

So is Jesus telling us that we should hate our family members? No. The Word of God is full of examples of how we are to love others in and out of our family. Husbands are to love their wives and wives their husbands. Children should love and respect their parents as the parents love and nurture the children. God is the creator of families and has designed life to exist within these relational structures. So why would He declare that we should hate our fathers, mothers, children, and so forth? He is speaking in the sense of comparison. This is not the only place in the Bible where we see Jesus using this kind of extraordinary language. When talking about the power of faith, Jesus says:

Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.

      Mark 11:23

Jesus isn’t suggesting that we drive to the Colorado Rockies, get out of the car, and begin to do some geological renovation. He is using the “moving of mountains” language to refer to something that is impossible without God’s intervention. The point is that faith in God can bring powerful results. Likewise, when instructing us about sin, Jesus says:

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.

    Matthew 5:29-30

Is Jesus promoting self-mutilation? Of course not! He is simply using this kind of language to point to the seriousness of sin in our lives and how we need to take extreme spiritual measures in dealing with that sin.

So our passage today is using the same kind of language. God is not instructing us to hate our family but what He is saying is that compared to everything and everyone in our life, our devotion to Jesus and His purposes must rise to the level of top priority. Consider the following two passages of scripture and notice how the giving of our hearts to God is the means by which we devote our lives to God:

For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. 

2 Chronicles 16:9a

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.

Matthew 22:37-38

Do you love God with all of your heart? Have you given your heart to Christ? Is your heart completely His? These are the issues being addressed in today’s passage. And Jesus instructs us that if we truly want to be His disciples, we must make Him our priority over everything and everyone else.

But we also need to understand what happens when we make the decision to surrender our lives to Jesus. A true conversion to Christ results in the presence of God’s Spirit coming to reside in us. This allows us to now become a better spouse, better parents, better children, and better neighbors. Jesus knows that when a sinful person finally surrenders his/her life to Him, He will come into that life, bringing salvation, reconciliation, redemption, and the abundant life promised in scripture. But it all starts when we repent (change our mind), admit our need for a Savior, and then become willing to allow Him to take the lead, following wherever He takes us.

Are you living the Christian life? It’s all about priority and that priority must be on the Person of Jesus Christ!