“Then Said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:24
“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26-27
This is not a command to hate people. It is not speaking of hating in the deliberate, malicious sense, but in the indirect sense, the sense of denying all that would interfere with or come between our following the Lord.
An example of this could be Abraham’s response in following God’s order to offer up Isaac, Genesis 22, Hebrews 11:17-19. Abraham could have let his feelings for his son forbid his obedience to God. But he did not. His faith in following the Lord refused the constraints of paternal love, thus hating in the negative sense. But what he did was not driven by any ill will towards his son, Isaac, but rather he acted on the hope and expectations of pure faith.
Fleshly relations, or associations, will afford conflicts of interest with respect to following Christ. Human feelings about our obligations to fleshly relationships has the propensity to excuse oneself from following the Lord, to attend to fleshly relations. Thus, we have to deny the dictates of human feelings, when and where these conflicts arise, to determine the will of God. Instead of being drawn away from doing God’s will, because of the constraints of fleshly love, we are to have a hatred for anything that becomes an object that seeks to prevent our following the Lord, which includes our fleshly relations.
The principle of discipleship is that we develop a personal, spiritual constitution that requires that we obey and follow the Lord, no matter what the conflict of interest, even if it be ourselves.
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” Luke 9:24 No matter what the personal cost in the short term for following the Lord, it will reap a bountiful harvest in the long term. But to lack the faith to put God first, seeking to save ourselves from any personal losses, will backfire with both a failure in this life and an eternal loss.
God honors those who honor Him, 1 Samuel 2:30. To cave into our circumstances, rather than having done all to stand, will not only short circuit Divine favor, but it will wean us away from being dedicated to the Lord. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation.” Hebrews 2:3
SHARING
