LEARNING DAILY

Matthew 10:37-39, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.”  Jesus

This reminds me of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. God wanted to know if Abraham was willing to put God and His Word before even his own son. I do not want to take these verses out of context. Jesus was telling His disciples that He had come to bring a sword that would divide the world, even down to the family unit. In this case people, even today, must choose whether they will follow Jesus or deny Him.

It is with this thought that I want to explain further what was begun in the last page of the blog. I love my family! But I have been guilty of doing what Abraham did – I have often put them ahead of God. As I look back over time (hindsight) I see where God has done things where I have had to decide if I was going to place Him ahead my family in my heart. When I chose to keep my family ahead of Him, He begun to do things where I was forced to do things to change me; that has led to these writings. Many of you will simply call this life changes. I have struggled to let go. What I have come to learn is Jesus is not saying I have to remove loved ones from my heart; I need to put Him ahead of them in my heart and in my allegiance! For many of you reading this, you may not understand how real this struggle is to me.

Know this: Jesus demands His rightful place in the hearts of Believers. Believers must love Him more than all others and live their lives walking the narrow way demonstrating this is true, especially when choices need to be made. Jesus did not say Believers could not love others; He said they should love Him more. In Matthew 22: 34-40, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love Him with all our heart, souls and mind! The love Believers must have is to love Him and be obedient to Him before everyone and anything else. Jesus made it very clear to His disciples and all who want to follow Him today that those who refuse to follow Him first make them unworthy to be His disciples.

Jesus goes even further when He tells His disciples that refusing to take up one’s cross and follow Him are not worthy of following Him. He was reminding them of the custom of the Romans to make those sentenced to hang on a cross for their crimes, had to carry their cross to where they would be hung. This was an admission of the crimes they committed and carrying their cross was telling those who saw them the Romans had a right to execute them.

How does this relate to what Jesus was saying about picking up one’s cross to follow Him? He was telling His followers that they must be willing to put themselves to death – dying to self – in order to follow Him. Is that not what it means to walk the narrow way? Are we not as followers of Christ to let go of our own agendas, our own personal dreams, even our loved ones to follow Him? Is that not what Jesus meant when He said walking the narrow way was a difficult way? No one can call himself a follower of Jesus without doing so. Believers must be willing to die to self, place Jesus before their loved ones and anything else or they are not worthy of being His disciples.

Is the cost too high? My struggle has not been with following Jesus like He demands. My issue has been the struggle of knowing what that means. Honestly, I have misunderstood. I have also misunderstood how He has been dealing with me to understand I have tried to have family exist in my heart right alongside of Him, often before Him. Do not misunderstand, this is not me feeling sorry for me. It is about the clarity I am getting about what I have been trying to understand for so long. Jesus first! I am thankful for it!

I share this to encourage anyone reading it who may be dealing with some of the same issues. If it is just me, then praise God that He finally is getting through this hard head of mine! I am so thankful He never has given up on me!