We live in a culture that tends to water down tough things to make them more palatable, don't we? We love easy, we love convenient, we love efficient and we love to be comfortable. I realize how blessed we are to live in a country where we're able to worship openly. We can buy as many bibles as we want and read them in public. It's crazy to compare that to certain countries where it's such a covert operation to even pray together. Or how people in other countries have to sneak out at night and meet in someone's home just to read one page of scripture! They read it over and over again, thankful for that taste of the Word. Are we spoiled? Do we forget that in some places people are still persecuted for being believers? Then you read in scripture in Luke 14:25-35 "Large crowds were traveling with Yeshua. He turned to them and said, "if people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples. So those who do not carry their crosses and follow me cannot be my disciples. "Suppose you want to build a tower. You would first sit down and figure out what it costs. Then you would see if you have enough money to finish it. Otherwise, if you lay a foundation and can't finish the building, everyone who watches will make fun of you. They'll say, "this person started to build but couldn't finish the job." "Or suppose a king is going to war against another king. He would first sit down and think things through. Can he and his 10,000 soldiers fight against a king with 20,000 soldiers? If he can't, he'll send ambassadors to ask for terms of peace while the other king is still far away. In the same way, none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything. Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? It's not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. "Let the person who has ears listen!" Wow. So there's a ton to unpack here but I'm going to give us the well...condensed version (true to our culture). When Jesus gives these examples of the cost to follow Him as a disciple, He uses metaphors they will understand because of their culture. Family is huge in Jewish culture. War is another passionate cause and salt was a big commodity to them. They would have understood all these as weighty in terms of what it takes to follow Him. I love the ending when he says emphatically, "Let the person who has ears listen!" Obviously they all literally had ears but He was addressing those who had spiritual ears, those who would be convicted, those whose hearts were ready to receive that. Then there's the story of the rich man who asked him what he had to do to follow Him. He was already following Torah and doing what it said. Jesus knew his heart so He asked him to sell everything he had and he walked away sad because that was too high a price for him to pay to follow Jesus. So this begs the question, what are we willing to risk? What are we willing to give up? What do we prize in our hearts more than following Jesus? How is it that we live in a country where we are not persecuted or killed for being a believer or reading our bibles in public or even evangelizing to others and yet what are we consumed by? What priority does following Jesus have in our day? I think of the first missionary, the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus had just called her out on being divorced 4 times, but she is not shamed. She doesn't go and isolate herself. She runs back to town to tell everyone who she met and how she was forgiven! When we are convicted of our sin, do we put it on Facebook so excited we've been forgiven? Do we send out a mass text in exuberance? No, in fact we hide behind sins that are acceptable in our culture. At church someone might ask, how are you doing sister? We answer "better than we deserve" or maybe "struggling with pride" and the response, "we'll pray for you." Really? Is that the best we can do? How about honesty and being real? Would we ever publicly share our struggles and say "I'm struggling with pornography" "I'm addicted to meth at the moment" When did evangelizing especially in honesty become so taboo? I'm guilty of it too. I've struggled with performance. I want to be accepted and revered as much as the next person, but not at the cost of keeping me from Jesus. Not at the price of cheapening what He has done in my life and what I've witnessed in countless stories of others. My Savior did way too much for me to be silent. We must allow Him to search our hearts daily for the things that compete for our time, for our resources, for our love so that He and He alone is our source. Consider these things, reflect on your life with a grateful heart, and never, never forget we He has done for you.
"Those who want to come with me must say no to
the things they want, pick up their crosses every day, and follow me.
Those who want to save their lives will lose them. But those
who lose their lives for me will save them."
Luke 9:23-24
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