Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Luke 14:25–33
The subheading in our Bibles for this gospel passage reads, "The Cost of Discipleship," and before reading anything else on the page, that phrase alone should make us pause.
Jesus is about to tell us what it will cost us to follow Him. There will be a price. There will be sacrifice. Something will be required of us if we want to call ourselves a friend of Christ.
By now, we might think we know what's coming. We've heard this before, right? We'll suffer, the world will hate us, we'll need to detach ourselves from our possessions, and we'll encounter division.
But then Jesus catches us off guard and says something seemingly unimaginable: to follow Him, we must hate our father, mother, children, brothers, sisters, and even our own selves.
Wait … what?
The same Jesus who told us to love our enemy, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to forgive endlessly, is now saying that in order to follow Him, we must hate those we love most?
Surely, I must be missing something. There must be more to what He's saying.
And there is.
The hate Jesus is talking about is not one of anger, bitterness, or resentment. How could it be? He is love itself. We are made in the image of love, we are called to love, and we are capable of it because He first loved us.
Rather, He is speaking hyperbolically, to capture our attention and underscore the seriousness of the truth that love of God must come first. He is to be the center of our entire life. Our love for Him and our relationship with Him take precedence over all other bonds, even those with our beloved family.
In other words, Jesus is challenging us to examine, “Who is sitting on the throne of our hearts?” Is it our husbands, our children, parents, siblings, or our very selves? If that's the case, our priorities are misaligned. We cannot be His disciples if we love others, even our family, more than Jesus.
The One who ought to sit on the throne of our hearts is Him, Christ the King.
So often, there are competing goods in our lives. We know we should love God first, but we are up all night with the baby and the kids wake up early, so we skip our morning prayer. We need intentional time with our spouse, but we cancel date night again so as to care for our aging parents. We know we need to tend to our hearts and bodies, but we're running at 1,000 miles an hour, taking care of friends, volunteering, working, and trying to maintain a peaceful home, so that by the end of the day, we're just too tired to fit in a workout or eat a balanced meal.
Sound familiar? You're not alone.
With fall beginning, new schedules and routines are often part of all of our lives, even if we're not sending kids back to school. In a recent staff meeting, anticipating the changes on the horizon, Lisa Brenninkmeyer brought our WWP team back to the basics. "So often," she shared, "my priorities are in order in my head and heart but out of order in my practice, and maybe that resonates with you."
She pointed again to the list from Walking with Purpose: Seven Priorities that Make Life Work, which she revisits in the Bible study Ordering Your Priorities. At this time, when so many of us are experiencing transitions—of routines, schedules, activities, and prayer times—Lisa challenged us with a practical exercise to re-examine how we are approaching our days.
Step 1: Make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish in your day/week. Don't overthink it and don't jump into perfectionism mode, like I did, and write all the things you wish you could do. (Seriously, who was I kidding when I wrote down "wash baseboards.") Keep it real and honest!
Step 2: Make a note of which of the seven priorities each task corresponds to. Here they are in order of importance.
Step 3: Rewrite your entire list according to God’s proper order of priorities. Take note of the number of tasks in each priority. Are there any entirely lacking? How many items serve your relationship with God?
If you found that your priorities are in order in your head and heart, but are out of order in practice, you're in good company. Jesus knew this would be a challenge for us.
Right after telling us about the cost of discipleship, Jesus shares two parables that drive home this point. The first is about a man who sets out to build a tower but does not initially calculate how much it would cost him to complete the project. He begins but does not finish, and all who see him mock him. The second is of a king setting off to war who fails to determine if he has enough troops to win, and ends up having to negotiate peace terms.
When we prioritize other things over God, when our time with Him gets squeezed into the margins, we are like the foolish builder or the unwise king.
Jesus is encouraging us to calculate the cost, to prepare so that we may finish the race well. How do we do this? By loving Him above all else. By making Him our first priority.
And do you want to know the secret? When we "hate" our family by loving Jesus first, we are actually able to love them better. We are able to serve them with His heart, see them with His eyes, and navigate our day with peace, not anxiety.
So may we place Christ on the throne of our hearts. May we surrender our to-do lists to Him and place our days in His hands. When we do, we can trust that everything else will fall into place, for He is a God who offers abundant grace, who multiplies fish and loaves to feed thousands.
Food for thought or journaling . . .
Who, or what, is competing for the throne of your heart?
Lord, help me to be present with You now. Let me rest in Your all-sufficiency, trusting that as I cooperate with You, Your power will shape my day and order my priorities.
