Have you noticed that some of the teachings of Jesus are particularly difficult? The passage we are looking at today from Luke 14 is one of those.  Jesus uses extremely strong language to stress the importance of being all in when it comes to following Him.  Let’s look at His words together today. 

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “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. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ 31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he 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, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. 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. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Jesus has tons of people following Him at this point.  He wants to be strong with His message so the curious and those just following the crowd know that this is a serious commitment. Jesus is calling His followers to a completely different way of life.  He calls us to a kingdom life that has different priorities from the rest of the world.  He starts off by telling people to hate their family to follow Him.  To us this seems even more extreme than it actually is.  “Hating” is actually a Semitic expression for loving less.  Jesus is saying that He should be our first priority even over our family.  Then with His next illustrations He is encouraging us to count the cost.  He doesn’t want people to make an impulsive decision to follow Him and then fall away or lose their saltiness.  Jesus wants us to be “all in” when it comes to following Him.  Sometimes during our journey with Jesus being “all in” is easy and other times it is hard.  Jesus certainly went all in for us even to the point of dying for us. He simply calls us to in our fallen, broken, way go all in for Him as well.

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave