following Jesus

Luke 14:25 A large crowd was following Jesus.

He turned around and said to them,

  26 "If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison;

     your father and mother,

     wife and children,

     brothers and sisters,

     yes, even your own life.

Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.

27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.



  28 "But don't begin until you count the cost.

For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it?

29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money,

     and then everyone would laugh at you.


30 They would say, 'There's the person who started that building and couldn't afford to finish it!'



  31 "Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him?

32 And if he can't, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away.


33 So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything.



I have sweet friend & colleague in ministry, Beth, who often says something like this to people...

"Salvation is free. Following Jesus costs you everything."

Yeah...

Ya see, in following Him, Jesus sets about doing something radical...

Making us more like Him.

And what does that mean?

We have to let go of our life & ourselves.

And the person we've become in our sinful selves has to die.

For us to become like Him, we have to surrender our hopes, dreams, wants, needs, future, past, present - you name it, it has to be surrendered to Jesus.

And then He takes what we surrender, keeps what's in sync w/ His person & identity, & starts filling in the rest of our identity with Himself.

Sound scary?

Only if we insist on holding on to ourselves.

But think of this - what do we get in this surrender?

Him...

...and all that He is.

iow, Jesus endeavors to turn us into what we were originally purposed by God to be, before we polluted it with sin...

We were to be like Jesus.


Chew on that for a while...