07/02/2026 – “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, and even his own life — he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26
“If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a Person, Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a difference between devotion to a Person and devotion to principles or to a cause. Our Lord never proclaimed a cause; He proclaimed personal devotion to Himself. To be a disciple is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus. Many of us who call ourselves Christians are not devoted to Jesus Christ. No man on earth has this passionate love to the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Ghost has imparted it to him. We may admire Him, we may respect Him and reverence Him, but we cannot love Him. The only Lover of the Lord Jesus is the Holy Ghost, and He sheds abroad the very love of God in our hearts. Whenever the Holy Ghost sees a chance of glorifying Jesus, He will take your heart, your nerves, your whole personality, and simply make you blaze and glow with devotion to Jesus Christ.
The Christian life is stamped by “moral spontaneous originality,” consequently the disciple is open to the same charge that Jesus Christ was, viz., that of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent to God, and the Christian must be consistent to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to hard and fast creeds. Men pour themselves into creeds, and God has to blast them out of their prejudices before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Is He going to help Himself to your life, or are you taken up with your conception of what you are going to do? God is responsible for our lives, and the one great keynote is reckless reliance upon Him. Approved Unto God, 10 R“
Within Luke 14: 25-34 – Oswald points out two more verses:
“Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:27
“In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not say good-bye to all his possessions cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:33
Comments:
Is Jesus telling us literally that we must hate our own family to be a disciple? Of course not! But I submit he is saying the world will look at it as such once we completely submit our life to Christ.
Let’s consider the story of the rich young ruler is found in Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, and Luke 18:18-23 in the New Testament. In this account, a wealthy young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus tells him to sell his possessions and give to the poor.
Jesus asks the rich young ruler to “give up all his riches” and follow him. We don’t have an account of him requiring that with the other disciples. But he saw that it was a stumbling block for him. I further submit our family can be a stumbling block for us as well, even an “idol”. Any situation where we prioritize family worldly concerns over Jesus qualifies.
In his book: “Jesus the King”, Timothy Keller pointed out that at least one of the accounts notes that Jesus loved the rich young ruler upon first gazing upon him. He further noted: What’s up? Can we pick out another account like this? Keller conjectures that Jesus himself was the rich young ruler that gave up everything in the incarnation. Up until that point, he had been surrounded in the eternal dance of the Triune God. So, he obviously naturally related to the rich young ruler, which does not say he loved him more than any other soul.