Jesus is calling us to a deeper walk with Him, a life more surrendered to His will. The call to discipleship comes to all of us who have been born again and have received God’s grace in our lives.
This call to discipleship is personal. Jesus is calling you to be His disciple; calling you to follow Him more fully as you die to yourself and yield your will to His.
“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. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27 NIV). Here, we see Jesus giving us the call for discipleship. There are those in life who follow Jesus for the benefits. These people have not counted the cost, and when times get tough and a sacrifice is required of them, they fall by the wayside.
…unless we die to ourselves, the life of Jesus cannot grow within us.
Jesus, in this scripture, is calling on us to count the cost. How much do I love Him above all else? Am I willing to bear my cross, and what does that mean? Am I willing to forsake everything to follow Jesus? As we look at the call to discipleship, we need to ask ourselves, “Am I a fair-weather follower or am I a disciple who has counted the cost and am willing to give up everything, including my life, for Jesus?”
So, what does it mean to be a disciple? Disciple means “student,” and yet in the Greek, it is even more radical than a student. A disciple is one who studies the life and actions of another with the intention of becoming a living imitation of the master.
As disciples of Jesus, we seek not only to know Him better, but we also seek to live our lives as He did, setting an example for us. In Luke 14:26-27, Jesus gives us three prerequisites to be His disciples.
1. Our love for Jesus needs to be greater than anything else.
Jesus is not teaching an emotional hatred of one’s parents or family any more than He is teaching self-hatred. The emphasis is on self-denial and absolute surrender. Our love and commitment to Jesus must be greater than anything or anyone else in this world. The hatred Jesus is talking about means “to love less than.”
2. We need to carry our cross and follow Jesus.
We often today refer to our cross as some obstacle that is in our way of getting what we want, but Jesus was saying that we need to die; we need to die to all we want and all we hold on to, all our dreams and ambitions, why? So that His will, His purpose, and His life can be born in us. You see, unless we die to ourselves, the life of Jesus cannot grow within us.
This is one of the great paradoxes of the gospel. The more we hang on to our lives, the more we lose them, but the more we die to self, the more we find life. This is because true life is found not within ourselves, but within the life of Christ in us.
3. We need to forsake everything.
While giving up something physically is part of what Jesus was saying here, I think it goes deeper than that. We need to let go emotionally of our possessions, so that what we possess no longer possesses us. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them” (1 John 2:15).
The time has come for us to abandon ordinary Christianity and choose to have a radical faith and trust in Jesus. This means that we choose to be intentional about being students of the way of Jesus. Loving God more than any other thing, dying to my will, my desires, and allowing the life of Jesus to come alive within me.
Photo credit: AI-generated
