The "Hard Sayings of Jesus" (pt 2)

Last week I covered part of Luke 9 and I want to finish off the end of the chapter. Jesus is visited by three different people that are called and desire to follow him but have reservations about different cares of life. The first comes to Jesus and is told that if he follows Jesus he will have no home or comfortable place to dwell. The second has a funeral to attend before he would follow Jesus. The third has a job to finish before he will go. None of these 3 men are fit to follow Jesus in the way that He demands. Jesus demands reckless abandonment of anything that would hinder us from ministering. The disciples are called and they immediately drop everything they have to do follow Him. Christians often look at people in the examples of the Bible and comment that "I would do it differently if I were there". But this is the very pattern displayed by much of Christianity today. "Jesus, I will follow you but wait till I get my degree/get a wife/whatever else". Jesus has one thing to say to you "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God". In other words: If you are worried about anything more than living for Christ you are of little worth. To follow Christ is going to demand everything from you, it will take all your time and resources. No wonder Paul said it is better for a minister to stay single. The demands of ministry and life will put enormous strain on a marriage. Jesus will not have it if you want to put off following Him for any reason. If that is your attitude then you will be useless in ministry when hard times come.

The "Hard Sayings of Jesus" (pt 1)

For those people that think that Jesus was weak of a sissy have obviously never read the Gospels (or much of the Bible). Jesus had a lot to say that made many people turn from following Him. Jesus called for a complete surrender of all we had. Luke 9 is an excellent example of this. In just one chapter Jesus calls people to "deny themselves" and "take up their cross daily" in order to follow Him. Deny yourself... everything that is of you and not of Christ must be completely denied. After which we take up our cross; the heavy, splintered, shame-filled, and despised symbol of oppression. And yet for a Christian is one of the greatest sights in history (along with His empty grave). Jesus is asking us to bear a burden that the world will look at and think foolish for embarking on this journey with joy, for taking such a task with gladness. The world will mock us and yet we happily take our crosses as a symbol of out association with the Christ. He is asking, in a different way, to deny ourselves in order to follow Him. Make no mistake, this is not a following that is going to be easy to see through. It has cost millions their lives and we ought not be so gib to assume that we can escape such an outcome yet we must embrace the opportunity to follow Him with great fervor. Paul echos this idea when he says that it is "no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me" which follows his claim to have been "crucified with Christ. I urge you (as I do myself) to follow the example of Paul in following the command of Christ.

Good morning. This is my first blog post here and I am excited to be able to post for who ever sees this. This post wont be anything theological or deal much with the Bible but the rest will. I just wanted to introduce myself. My inetent is to blog (at a minimum) on every Friday. I will be sharing quiet times, prayer requests, and other various theological topics. So, thanks for visiting and I hope you come back to see more.