“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:25-27

During the course of His earthly ministry, Jesus said many interesting things that could at times puzzle His initial audience. Many of those statements still puzzle people today, and the words Jesus spoke in this passage certainly fall into that category.

At this point in His ministry, Jesus had revealed His divine nature. He taught about eternal things with authority. He healed people of diseases. He raised the dead to life, and he irritated religious leaders who were jealous of the attention He was getting. In fact, Jesus was becoming so well known that great crowds of people started following Him wherever He went and assembled to hear Him in the towns He visited.

It’s ironic, but people still do the same things to Jesus today that they did back then. Some people in that crowd had devoted their entire lives to following Him, while others were just there to observe out of curiosity’s sake. So to differentiate between them, Jesus made a definitive statement. He said that a person’s love for Him must be so great that their love for their closest family would look like hate in comparison. He said we must be willing to identify with Him in every way, even by receiving the reproaches of this world, if we would really call ourselves His disciples. What do you think? Could that be said of you?

Several years ago, I received a word of criticism from someone that I think was intended to discourage me. It actually had the opposite effect. I was criticized for caring more about my family than I cared about our church. That was certainly an interesting thing to hear because I know in my heart that I love my family and I love our church, but here’s the thing… I do care about my family more than I care about anyone or anything else on this earth. I care more about my family than our church, my friends, and even myself. So I’m OK with that criticism. 

But according to Jesus, my love for my family, even though it is my greatest earthly love, must pale in comparison to my love and devotion for Him if I’m really going to be His disciple. The great news about that, however, is that when I truly understand what it means to walk in the love of Christ, that’s when I learn what it really looks like to love my family. And through my relationship with Christ, I’m granted His power and wisdom to love and lead my family the right way.

So, when I look at Christ’s comments about loving Him above everyone else, I realize that statement will only offend me if it needs to. It will only offend me if my heart is in the wrong place.

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