Last night I had a dream about choices. I’ve had this dream before and always woke up in turmoil. Not this time. I’d asked the Holy Spirit to strengthen my heart concerning this particular matter, and this time I woke up calm and thinking, “How dumb was that?”
To my surprise, my devotional verses for today are directly related to choices and even answer my rhetorical question. Jesus challenged the multitudes following Him with this:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. “Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Luke 14:26-35)I’ve been thinking how much I need to hate sin, at that hatred is literal. Here, putting God first and hating even my own family is not the same thing. The use of this term “hate” is more about comparison than it is attitude and emotion.
However, this passage does concern itself with emotion and thinking through my choices. When people hear the good news about Jesus Christ and what He has done for them, some will respond with great excitement and emotion. They are determined to follow Him, but when the emotion wears off, so does the commitment. (This is so like many marriages these days!) Jesus asks for serious thought before making a decision to follow Him, not jumping into it based on emotions.
When I started, I never thought about the long haul, nor did I know anything about the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Most people don’t. Yet my commitment was not emotional. Had it been, it would not have lasted. As soon as His will began to spell sacrifice of my wants, I would have bailed out.
God’s grace makes the difference in my conversion as it does in all conversions that last. My transformation from an ordinary, do-my-own-thing person to disciple of Jesus Christ was not my doing, but His. It wasn’t so much a decision on my part but an event. It just happened. The ‘forsaking all’ challenges became part of the learning curve that came later.
The last two verses in this passage are in a separate paragraph in my Bible, but they go with this disciple description. They describe what happens if someone decides to follow Jesus, but tries also to make everything else just as important. I’ve learned that I cannot juggle family, work, recreation, friendships and my faith by putting each into its own compartment.
Some people try it. When at work, their job is number one. When at home, family is number one. When at the rink, hockey is number one. The odd thing is that when they go to church they have trouble making Christ number one. Discipleship doesn’t work like that. When Jesus is on the throne of my life, other things take their rightful place. Under His direction, I know what choices to make and where to focus my energies. It is when I try to direct and prioritize apart from His input that my life goes off-balance.
In my dream, God did a bit of a check to see if He is number one in my heart. Sometimes I flunk tests like that, but I’m so glad for the learning curve and for the power of the Holy Spirit because this time He enabled me to pass it.
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