-Romans 9:33-
Is this one for the people?
Is this one for the Lord?
Or do I simply serenade
The things I must afford?
You can jumble them together
My conflict still remains
Holiness is calling
In the midst of courting fame
I see the trust in their eyes
Though the sky is falling
They need Your love in their lives
Compromise is calling
Father, please forgive me
For I cannot compose
The fear that lives within me
Or the rate at which it grows
If struggle has a purpose
On the narrow road You've carved
Why do I dread my trespasses
Will leave a deadly scar?
Do they see the fear in my eyes?
Are they so revealing?
This time I cannot disguise
All the doubt I'm feeling
What if I stumble?
What if I fall?
What if I lose my step
And I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue
When my walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble
And what if I fall?
I hear You whispering my name
You say "My love for you will never change"
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You never turn in the heat of it all
What if I stumble, what if I fall?
You are my comfort and my God
-dcTalk-
Well, I started writing this a couple of weeks ago in the middle of a night on a cot in Baghdad. At the time, I found myself digging through Luke, back to a passage I’d heard a few weeks ago back in Oklahoma. It was a message on being committed... and the cost of that commitment for those who were truly dedicated.
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
And Jesus said to Him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Then he said to another, “Follow me.”
But he said to another, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”
But Jesus also said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
-Luke 9:57-62-
Three men approach Jesus wishing to follow Him and become His disciples... yet all three are denied. Why, and what can I learn from that?
Each of the men wanted to maintain a hold on specific parts of their life and were not willing to commit wholeheartedly to Him. God desires ALL of us or none of us.
The first man boldly proclaims that he wants to follow Jesus wherever they are going. Jesus responds by pointing out that neither He or any of His disciples had homes of their own, and that any who desired to follow Him must give up such things that many consider necessary. The first man says that he’ll follow Christ to the ends of the earth, but he turns away when he hears that the cost of following Christ is denying himself. Many people during this period of time believed that Christ had come to earth to establish a physical (though temporary) kingdom there. This man likely imagined that he would do well to be with Jesus as he established this kingdom. I don’t think many of us pursue Christ solely for material gain... but when the cost of total commitment is the physical (temporary!) objects and belongings that we hold onto in this world, it becomes a sacrifice that many of us are not willing to make.
The second man is actually called by Jesus to follow Him, but instead lets his love for his family delay his desire to follow Christ. In my brief amount of studying, this man’s reply has several different interpretations. I’m no scholar and I should probably enlist my sister’s knowledge of Greek here but... I’ll give it a go. From what I have read, it makes the most sense during this period of time... if his father had already died, he would have already been involved in the burial procedure. It appears more likely to me that his father was near death and this man wanted to wait until his father passed away, before he left to follow Jesus.
Our love and desire for Him should be so much that our love for our family looks like hatred in comparison. Jesus tells the man to let the (spiritually) dead bury the (physically) dead, but instead he allows his love for his family to weaken his love for Christ; and puts off pursuit of the eternal kingdom of God for a temporary relationship with his father.
The third man, much like the second, also let family ties interfere, “Lord, I will follow Thee; but...” Anybody seeing anything wrong with this statement? When a loving farewell gets in the way of obeying Christ, it becomes sin. The third man would be looking back instead of ahead, his heart never wholly with Christ; hence Jesus’ comment on plowing and never looking back.
At the time that these men attempted to join Jesus, He was on His way to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, He would be flogged, mocked, crucified, and finally take on the sins of the world and be separated from God the Father, ultimately conquering the grave and resurrecting three days later. This is the one most crucial point of time that defines all of history, and God would have used any of these three men during this period... if only they had been willing to totally commit themselves. Instead, they chose to hold onto temporary relationships and objects.
None of us know what God has in store for each and every one of us when we dedicate our lives, possessions, relationships, everything completely to Him and for Him.
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”
Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
-Luke 14:25-35-
