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Many thanks to Peter Jones who has again prepared this week’s devotions. This week our attention is focused on Luke chapter 14, verses 16-35. Please read these verses every day this week and, if possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 14:25-27 (NIV)
‘Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’
It is hard to believe that Jesus is telling people to hate. This seems to contradict all that He says about loving one another. So we have to offer some explanation. The word “hate” here means “to love less”. When we understand this meaning then it begins to make sense. What Jesus is saying that we are to love family, friends or anything that is demanding our commitment less than our love for Him. Throughout history we read of Christian martyrs who loved Jesus more than their life. I suppose we could use this word “hate” for their attitude to life because it was less than their love for their Saviour.
I trust you will be able to understand what I am trying to convey perhaps as we move on to the next part of this text “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” I have always struggled with understanding what it means to carry their cross. I now have the opportunity to look at this subject in some detail. I am sure that I will not be able to fully explain it but it will be sufficient for my understanding.
When we look at the cross we see that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, He sacrificed many things. All his possessions even His clothes, they cast lots for his garment. He sacrificed His dignity, He was ridiculed, He wore a crown of thorns because they wanted to make fun of Him. He lost his family, He gave his mother to another and even His brothers were confused by His death. He suffered the pain of torture and the agony of the nails in His hands and the hanging on a cross. He even faced the pain of His father forsaking Him when in Matthew 27 we read these words “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” .
The sin that he bore separated Him from the Father. Such was His love for you and for me that He endured all that the cross entailed. I suppose that is what the cross means to me is because it speaks mainly of sacrifice. Jesus was prepared to sacrifice all these things so that I could live a life of freedom from sin and the blessing of all that salvation gives me. I trust you have better understanding of these verses and seek to take up your cross and be a disciple and follower of Jesus.
I will close with a story I read recently. A little frail old man entered the Red Cross Blood Donor Centre. He stood patiently in line waiting his turn at the reception desk. He was immaculately dressed, hands clean and freshly manicured, hair carefully combed, and his necktie bright and new. And he was smiling. As he told the receptionist he was eighty years old, she smiled, too. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you are too old to give a pint of blood.” The man’s face fell, and when he turned away, convinced at last they could not accept what he came there to give, he said quietly: “I was not going to tell you this if you had accepted me. I knew I would not survive a blood donation. I dressed for my funeral. I should have died happy, knowing my death might mean life for some boy somewhere far from home.
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