Tension!

Jesus wasn’t fooling around in Luke 14:26 when he said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.“

I have recently decided to make a change in my life and what I have learned is that people REALLY HATE CHANGE! Even if a particular person is not making a change themselves; someone else making one causes them to rethink their lives and their (sometimes selfish) plans for you (the one making the change).

I really love my family. We are closer than any family I know, but unfortunately that is making this change much harder than usual. We have all been so content living inside of our little bubble and when God calls one of us out of that bubble, it shakes the bubble up for everyone else in it. It makes them question whether they should be in the bubble or not. Or if they stay in the it, how they will fill the space in the bubble that you just created by leaving.

Now I obviously don’t hate my parents, my wife, or my children. That’s not what Jesus was implying. I love all of those people VERY much. But what Jesus meant, was, that we have to put following Him in front of all of our other relationships. That no matter what Jesus calls us to do, and no matter how many people that upsets, that we do it because we love Him more than everyone else. The love we are to have for Jesus is so much bigger than the love we have for our families; that if you compared the two , the love for our families would seem like hate.

Later in verse 27 of chapter 14, Jesus says,” Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” I am really starting to understand what Jesus meant. Sometimes following Him can be really difficult, but knowing that I am going to follow Him no matter what the cost and no matter who it offends only makes me stronger in the Lord. It will give me a joy in my heart that cannot be understood because it does not make sense to the rational human mind.

Pray for me that God will grant me the strength to make tough decisions and that my relationship with my family would stay strong.